Maze Dam

About the Maze Dam

The Maze Dam is a concrete gravity dam built for irrigation on the Maze River at Kodaira, Kodama-machi, Honjo City, Saitama Prefecture, completed in 1937; the dam and the management bridge below it were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (structures) on October 18, 2000 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The name 間瀬堰堤 is read Maze entei; it is also called Maze Dam.

The owner is the local irrigation land improvement district, the 美児沢用水土地改良区 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The reservoir behind it, Lake Maze, lies within the Jobu Prefectural Natural Park according to the Kanto Regional Agricultural Administration Office.

The Heart of the Kodama Canal

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the dam was the central work of the Kodama irrigation canal, built between 1919 and 1938, and was designed by Takahori Ikuzo.

The Kanto Regional Agricultural Administration Office explains that Lake Maze was created by damming the Maze River as a reservoir for the Kodama canal, and calls the dam the oldest surviving irrigation gravity dam in eastern Japan. Saitama Prefecture describes it as built over eight years from 1930.

The Two Registered Structures

Both were registered on October 18, 2000 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Maze Dam is a concrete gravity dam 126 metres long and 28 metres high, with an intake tower and protective embankments. The intake tower has a two-storey wooden house on top; a spillway channel runs through the dam body, the spillway chute overflows at the centre, and the parapet along the crest is made of concrete imitating wood (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Maze Dam Management Bridge, of 1938, crosses the outflow below the dam in 3 reinforced-concrete girder spans, 9.5 metres long and 2.0 metres wide. Its piers are cut away in arches at the base and grooved for stop logs (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Visiting and Location

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, recent landscaping has made the management bridge part of a popular walking path, and Saitama Prefecture's regional notes present the dam as a place for cherry blossoms.

The location is Kodaira, Kodama-machi, Honjo City. No official information on access to the dam's interior, parking or public transport could be confirmed. Each structure is described in its own article.