Hyōgo Prefecture Ashiya has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) characterized by warm summers and cool winters with light snowfall.

The area of Ashiya was part of ancient Settsu Province and was mostly tenryō territory under direct control the Tokugawa shogunate during the Edo Period.

Ashiya was established in 1871 as a township in Hyōgo Prefecture and was designated part of Seido village (精道村) on April 1, 1889, with the creation of the modern municipalities system.

In the early 1900s, it was designated as an urban planning area and became one of the centers of the Hanshinkan Modernism movement in terms of architecture and culture.

In 1945, the City of Ashiya prohibited the operation of pachinko parlors, gambling and entertainment facilities as well as small factories.

In 1991, Ashiya residents elected Harue Kitamura as the first woman to hold the office of mayor of a city in Japan.

[4] Ashiya has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral city council of 21 members.

[6] Persons of note associated with Ashiya include Jirō Shirasu ("the man who reproached MacArthur"), Ryōji Noyori (Nobel prize winner), Takashi Asahina (conductor), Junichirō Tanizaki (writer), Haruki Murakami (writer), Yuriko Koike (House of Representatives member), Yōko Ogawa (writer), Tsumasaburō Bandō (kabuki actor), Morinosuke Kawaguchi (futurist), Tsuruko Yamazaki (artist),[7] Takuya Kuroda (jazz trumpeter and arranger), Takakeishō Mitsunobu (professional sumo wrestler), and Tomiko Itooka (supercentenarian).