Nagaoka City, located along the Shinano River and in the middle part of Niigata Prefecture, is an industrial city characterized by its production of machines. The machine industry in this distict started from the production and repair of machines used for oil drilling and gradually expanded into other kinds of machines. However, the machine industry of Nagaoka City is inclined towards the production of machine tools and several kinds of industrial equipments. This is one of its significant difference compared with the Keihin industrial district which produces almost all kinds of machines.
At first, the machine industry in Nagaoka City was located in the central part of the city. From about the beginning of World War II, it gradually moved to the northern outskirt of the city when the city undertook an aggression policy of inviting manufacturing companies. It presently consists of large factories producing finished goods, around which are found small scale machine manufacturing plants and the various kinds of so-called bottom industries.
One of the characteristics of the machine industry of Nagaoka City is that the small scale factories as well as the large factories produce high-performance machines which are used throughout the country. Subcontract factories and many materials are needed for the production of machines. Such sources are closely knitted by the large factories in the northern part of the city.
Both the management and workers of these factories, in most cases, reside in this district. Thus, Nagaoka City can be considered as a small core of the machine industry in Japan.