Most of the land consists of steep mountains, so there is little cultivated land. The land that is cultivated can be seen on the narrow flatland along the Kiso River. The area has abundant rainfall with annual precipitation of 3000mm. Forest Industry used to be common throughout the region but since the 1980s has declined. During the
Tokugawa shogunate period, forestry development rapidly expanded. In addition, the Kiso River excavation business was promoted, making it possible to transport large amounts of timber. In the early modern times, the use of forest materials became significant and the depletion of forest resources became a concern, so the
Owari-Tokugawa clan started to use forest conservation and deforestation control policies, resulting in the formation of vast cypress forests. After the
Meiji era, the forest became a state-owned forest, and in 1889, it became a royal estate as a royal forest. It was designated as a national forest in 1947, after World War II and went under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Agency. After that, there was a large amount of destruction of trees by the
Isewan Typhoon in 1959. At the time the forest industry used to be large, but price competition with imported foreign timber in the latter half of the 1980s, and the amount of timber harvested decreased. ==Communities==