Shinonsen is a town in San-in Region of Japan, the northern part of Chugoku Region.
San-in literally means the ying side of the mountains (Chugoku Mountains in particular in this case) whereas San-yo is the yang side, the populated and heavily industrialized southern side where Hiroshima is and the gateway from Kyushu to Osaka.
San-in, which is now very dispersedly populated and has almost no industry base, used to play a significant role in the ancient history of Japan. Izumo, which was located in now Shimane Prefecture was once an ancient kingdom that played a pivotal role in giving birth to Japan as we know today, and is said to have constituted a pan-Sea-of-Japan cultural sphere along with the east coast of ancient Korea. Today, we don’t know what kind of people they actually were but they certainly existed before being conquered by Yamato people and has since never appeared again in the main stream of Japanese history except in the form of Shinto worship at Izumo Shrine and many others that enshrine Okuni-nushi.
Herein Hamasaka where I live there is a shrine called, XXX Shrine, which is the biggest in the town and looks over the whole town of Hamasaka.