Ariake Sea

The vast tidal flat spreading along the Ariake Sea coastline is said to be equivalent to about 40% of the total area of tidal flats in Japan. It has its own ecosystem and various species of flora and fauna. The mudskippers that jump energetically about the flats and the fiddler crabs, with its one claw that is much larger than the other can be seen from the early summer to the autumn. Plankton is abundant in the tidal flat, and more than 100 kinds of wild birds come by foraging for throughout the year. It is one of the leading transit places and overwintering sites in the country including water birds including endangered species such as the black-faced spoonbill and the Saunders’s gull, and boasts the largest number of sandpipers and plovers than anywhere else in Japan.

The Ariake Sea is the largest bay in Japan where differences between the ebb and flow of the tides reaches 6 m, and covering as far as you can see the tidal flats at its deepest point. Nori being a major product that carried out taking advantage of its tide difference, Saga Nori received abundant of nature boasts as the best quality and quantity in Japan. Marine products such as seaweed are rooted in the lives of local people as "Maeumimon". "Maeumi" means "the sea spreads out in front of the eyes", and is local’s nickname for Ariake Sea.