Iida, city in central Japan, on central Honshu Island, in southern Nagano Prefecture. Iida lies on the Tenryu River and in the Ina Basin between two ranges of the Japanese Alps: the Akaishi Mountains to the east and Kiso Mountains to the west. Iida is a regional business center. It processes agricultural products, including apples, cherries, peaches, and pears from the many orchards concentrated along the terraces of the Ina Basin, for sale to urban markets. Iida has an electronics and precision-instruments industry, and there is an increasing emphasis on tourism. It also manufactures mizuhiki, traditional paper strings used for decorations. Until the 1920s Iida was an important center of the silk industry and was known for the manufacture of motoyui, a traditional silk hair tie. The population of Iida has decreased recently; many of the city's younger people have been drawn to the stronger economy of the Nagoya metropolitan area about 90 km (about 60 mi) to the southwest. From about 1195 the city developed as the administrative headquarters of the domain's ruling daimyo (feudal lords). It later became a major stop on a busy packhorse trail over the mountains that linked Japan's eastern Pacific Ocean coast with cities on the western Sea of Japan (East Sea) coast. In the 1880s Iida was the headquarters of the Patriotic Truth Society, which was a part of a nationwide movement advocating democratic reforms. In 1884 the society was involved in a plot to overthrow the government, but the plot was discovered and its leaders were imprisoned before the scheme was carried out. Population (1999) 106,464.
