As of August 1, 2006 the city has an estimated population of 96,374. The total area is 2177.67km². Takayama is a sister city with Denver, Colorado. The city is fairly old, dating back to the Jōmon period. Takayama is best known for its background in carpentry. It is believed carpenters from Takayama worked on the Imperial Palace in Kyoto and on many of the temples in Kyoto and Nara. The town and its culture, as they exist today, took shape at the end of the 16th century, when the Kanamori clan built Takayama Castle. About a hundred years later the city came under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. However, the high altitude and separation from other areas of Japan kept the area fairly isolated, allowing Takayama to develop its own culture over about a 300 year period.