 The village is located on Route 439 in the Iya Valley, a remote mountainous area.It formerly had about 300 inhabitants, but the decline in Japan's population has caused that to fall to 35 by January 2015, 30 , and 27 by September 2019.In the early 2000s, Tsukimi Ayano, whose family left the area when she was a child, moved back to Nagoro to look after her father, and made a doll in his likeness that she placed in a field.