葛西用水など4つの施設が世界かんがい施設遺産に認定

Welcome to Japanese Daily News. I'm Maya. Today is August twenty-fourth. Four historic Japanese waterways — from an Edo-era canal to the moat of an ancient tomb — have just been named World Heritage Irrigation Structures. Let's listen.

Now let's break it down, sentence by sentence.

Four historic irrigation facilities in Japan have been recognized as World Heritage Irrigation Structures.

It means official recognition or certification.

The agriculture ministry announced it on the twenty-first — irrigation means drawing water from rivers or ponds into rice paddies and fields.

It means a rice paddy — a flooded field where rice grows.

The Saitama canal was built in the seventeenth century, in the Edo period, and draws its water from the Tone River.

It means a waterway or canal.

It is said that Edo could grow into a city of one million people because this canal supported the rice farming around it.

It means growth.

In Osaka, waterways built on a medieval manor are still carefully used today.

It means the Middle Ages — roughly the twelfth to sixteenth centuries in Japan.

In Nara, the moat around an ancient burial mound has long provided water for farming — a rare case.

It means an ancient burial mound, built for rulers over a thousand years ago.

The water paths built by the wisdom of people long ago still keep supporting Japan's farming, hundreds of years later.

It means wisdom.

Let's listen to the whole story one more time.

Time for a short quiz. Listen and try to answer.

Four — in Saitama, Shizuoka, Osaka, and Nara.

In the Edo period — the seventeenth century.

The Tone River.

In France — in the city of Marseille.

That's all for today. From an Edo-era canal to the moat of an ancient tomb, these waterways have fed Japan's fields for centuries — and now the world will remember them too. See you tomorrow.