Biei 美瑛町

• Ainu piye ("oily, greasy"): The town is named after the Biei River. The river's name comes from the Ainu word piye, meaning "oily" or "greasy." Place-name scholar Yamada Hidezō (山田秀三) explains that the river rises in volcanic country. Sulfur in the water made it cloudy, so it looked greasy²⁰.
• Variant form: The Britannica Japan entry gives the Ainu form as Piiepetsu (ピイエペツ), "greasy river"⁶.
• The kanji: The characters 美 ("beautiful") and 瑛 ("jewel-like") were chosen for their sound.
• Other Ainu names in the town:
  • Bibaushi (美馬牛) comes from pipa-us-i, "where there are many freshwater pearl mussels"²¹.
  • Ubakubetsu (宇莫別) comes from u-pak-pet, "a river as large as the other." It is a tributary nearly equal in size to the Bebetsu River²².
  • Bebetsu (辺別) is usually explained as pe-pet, "water river"²³.
  • The Chūbetsu River (忠別川) is often explained as ciw-pet, "river of waves." Other explanations exist²⁴.

• Prehistory and the Ainu era: Stone tools and pottery from the Jōmon period or earlier suggest that people lived here about 10,000 years ago. According to the Biei Tourism Association, Ainu people came to the area to hunt, but no village (kotan) was recorded here¹⁴.
• Late Edo period: In 1857 (Ansei 4), the shogunate official Matsuda Ichitarō (松田市太郎) and the explorer Matsuura Takeshirō (松浦武四郎) surveyed the area¹⁴. The town dates the first survey of the Biei River to the same year⁵. Japanese Wikipedia dates Matsuura's survey to 1858¹.
• Meiji settlement:
  • 1887: The government began selecting land for settlement on the Kamikawa plain¹. Colonial survey lots were laid out in 1893⁶.
  • 1894: The first settler, Kobayashi Naosaburō (小林直三郎) from Hyōgo Prefecture, founded the Asahi Farm at Hebetsubuto (辺別太, today's Asahi district) with three hired hands¹⁴⁵.
  • 1899: The Tokachi Line (today's JR Furano Line) opened between Asahikawa and Biei¹⁴.
  • 1900: The Tanaka Farm (today's Mita, 美田) and the Hanzawa Farm (today's Hokuei, 北瑛) were founded. Biei became a village independent of Kagura¹⁴.
• Farming the hills: Settlers built houses near water. They turned the flat valley floors into rice paddies and the hill slopes into fields. Horses did the farm work and pulled sleds until the 1960s¹⁴. Biei soft stone (美瑛軟石), a welded tuff, was quarried in town from 1906 to around 1969. It was widely used for building and civil engineering²⁵.
• 1926 Tokachidake eruption: On 24 May 1926, a snowmelt mudflow (lahar) rushed down the Biei and Furano rivers. It reached the Kamifurano town area, about 25 km away, within about 20 minutes according to Japanese Wikipedia's cited reconstruction²⁶; the Tokachidake Geopark gives 30–50 minutes after the explosion²⁷. It damaged Biei as well, and 144 people were killed or went missing²⁶²⁷. It also buried the Maruya and Hatakeyama hot springs on the Biei side²⁸. The white birches that line the road to Shirogane, today's "Shirakaba Kaidō" (白樺街道), grew up on the mudflow deposits¹²²⁷.
• 1930s–1950s:
  • 1932: Construction began on the Biei reservoir (today's Seidai Dam, 聖台ダム). Convicts from the Asahikawa prison branch were used as laborers¹.
  • 1940: Biei became a town⁵.
  • After World War II, former army land and imperial land were released for farming, and the area under cultivation grew⁶.
  • 1947: An agricultural cooperative was founded¹⁴.
  • 1950: Mayor Kōgami Kakuichi (鴻上覚一) had a well drilled 399 m deep and struck 48 °C water. He called it "platinum" (白金, shirogane) from underground, which gave Shirogane Onsen its name¹².
  • 1951: The Biei Tourism Association was founded¹⁴.
• 1962 eruption: Volcanic bombs destroyed sulfur-mine buildings near the crater, killing five people²⁶.
• The photography boom:
  • 1971: Maeda Shinzō first visited Biei¹⁴.
  • 1972 and 1976: The Ken and Mary Tree and the Seven Star Tree appeared in advertising⁸⁹.
  • 1983: Crop rotation began, and the hills started changing color from year to year¹⁴.
  • 10 July 1987: Takushinkan opened in the former Chiyoda Elementary School¹⁵. The town says it went on to draw as many as 400,000 visitors a year⁵.
• 1988–89 eruption: About 300 residents of Biei and Kamifurano were temporarily evacuated²⁶. An erosion-control dam built on the Biei River in 1989 accidentally created the Blue Pond¹¹.
• Protecting the landscape:
  • 2003: Biei passed an ordinance to protect and nurture its landscape⁵.
  • 2005: Biei and six other municipalities founded the "Most Beautiful Villages in Japan" association⁵.
  • 2007: Michi-no-Eki Oka-no-Kura opened⁵.
  • July 2012: A photo of the Blue Pond became one of the desktop wallpapers in Apple's OS X Mountain Lion¹¹.
  • 2013: The Blue Pond's winter illumination began⁵.
• Recent years:
  • 2016: The Misora local-history museum and the Tokachidake Bōgakudai disaster shelter opened⁵.
  • 2018: Michi-no-Eki Shirogane Birke opened⁵.
  • 2022: The Tokachidake Geopark was certified as a Japanese Geopark¹⁴.
  • 2023: UN Tourism (UNWTO) named Biei a "Best Tourism Village"¹⁴. A sustainable-tourism ordinance took effect on 1 April 2023²⁹.
• 2026:
  • The town marks 70 years of asparagus growing³⁰.
  • Blue Pond parking fees rose on 1 July³¹.
  • Very small eruptions occurred at Tokachidake's 62-2 crater on 22 July and 6 August. On 12 September, the eruption alert level was raised from 2 to 3 (entry restricted)¹⁸. Level 3 was still in force on 21 September³².
  • JR's Furano-Biei Norokko sightseeing train, which had run since 1998, made its last trips on 23 September³³.

• Setting: Biei lies near the center of Hokkaido, roughly halfway between Asahikawa and Furano⁵. It sits between the Tokachidake range of Daisetsuzan National Park (大雪山国立公園) to the east and the Yūbari Mountains to the west¹.

• How the hills formed: Huge pyroclastic flows from 3 million to 1 million years ago buried the land in ash and pumice. Cycles of freezing and thawing then wore it into gentle slopes. Settlers cleared the forest about 130 years ago and turned the slopes into farmland²⁷. Biei soft stone comes from one of these flows. It is a rhyolitic welded tuff about 2 million years old, with quartz visible to the naked eye²⁷²⁵.

• Mountains: The east of the town reaches into the Daisetsuzan and Tokachidake ranges. Peaks on or near the town's border include:

  • Shirakumo-dake (白雲岳), 2,230 m
  • Tomuraushi (トムラウシ山), 2,141 m
  • Tokachidake, 2,077 m
  • Biei-dake (美瑛岳), 2,052 m
  • Optateshike (オプタテシケ山), 2,013 m
  • Biei-Fuji (美瑛富士), 1,888 m

  Tokachidake itself is shared with Kamifurano and Shintoku¹²⁶. It is listed among Japan's 100 Famous Mountains (日本百名山)²⁶.

• Rivers: The Biei River is 67.6 km long. It rises on Tsurigane-yama in the Tokachidake range, flows past Shirogane Onsen and the town, and joins the Chūbetsu River in Asahikawa²⁰. Its tributaries include the Bebetsu, Ubakubetsu and Okikineushi rivers⁶. The Chūbetsu River rises on Chūbetsu-dake, on the town's eastern border with Kamikawa²⁴.

• Parks and geopark: The mountainous east is inside Daisetsuzan National Park¹. The Tokachidake Geopark (十勝岳ジオパーク) has sites in both Biei and Kamifurano. Its theme is "colors woven by hills and volcanoes"²⁷.

• Climate: The Biei weather station (美瑛アメダス) is at Genya 5-sen, 250 m above sea level¹. Its 1991–2020 normals are³⁴:

  • Annual mean temperature: 5.9 °C (January −8.7 °C, August 20.0 °C)
  • Precipitation: 988.8 mm a year
  • Total snowfall: 708 cm a season; average deepest snow cover 81 cm

• Records: 37.1 °C on 7 August 2021 and −33.2 °C on 24 January 1985. The deepest snow cover was 125 cm, on 3 March 1999³⁵. Biei is designated a special heavy-snow area (特別豪雪地帯)¹.

• Farming:

  • Farmland covers 12,600 ha: 2,200 ha of paddy and 10,400 ha of upland fields. About 40% of it is sloping land that qualifies for hill-farming subsidies⁷.
  • In 2025 the town's farm output totaled ¥15.79 billion⁷.
  • Wheat covers the largest area, 3,263.5 ha. Next come fodder crops, sugar beet, rice, potatoes and soybeans⁷.

  Value of farm output in 2025⁷:

  Product	Value (2025)
  Raw milk (34,486 t)	¥4.09 billion
  Rice	¥2.14 billion
  Meat animals (24,601 head)	¥1.95 billion
  Tomatoes (from only 37.4 ha)	¥1.81 billion
  Potatoes	¥1.34 billion
  Sugar beet	¥0.97 billion
  Wheat	¥0.97 billion
  Onions	¥0.58 billion

• Farm households: Biei had 357 commercial farm households in 2025, down from 2,419 farm businesses in 1955. The average farm is 32.2 ha, slightly below the Hokkaido average of 33.6 ha. Three new farmers started in 2025. The town trains newcomers for two years at its training center for new farmers⁷.

• Companies and cooperatives:

  • Biei Senka is run by Biei Senka Co. (株式会社美瑛選果), a subsidiary set up by JA Biei (美瑛町農業協同組合) in 2014. Its products include rusks and bread made from Biei wheat, and it has a second shop at New Chitose Airport³⁶.
  • Calbee Potato and Biei Foods are among the companies located in the town¹.

• Forestry: About 70% of the town is forest. Roughly a third of the forest is privately owned, and most of that is plantation¹.

• Tourism:

  • Visitors rose from 800,000 in FY1990 to 1.79 million in FY2014³⁷.
  • Hokkaido's count for FY2025 (April 2025–March 2026) was 2.60 million. That was 3.1% below FY2024's 2.69 million³⁸.
  • Visitors from outside Hokkaido rose 20% to 1.66 million³⁸.
  • There were 180,300 overnight guests³⁸.
  • Foreign overnight guests numbered 46,993, up 65%. South Korea was the largest source (14,377), followed by Taiwan and Hong Kong³⁸.

• Problems caused by tourism: Visitors trespass on fields, litter, park illegally and cause traffic jams³⁷³⁹. The town's tourism master plan responds by shifting from the number of visitors to the quality of the experience³⁷. Measures include:

  • a sustainable-tourism ordinance (2023)²⁹
  • free park-and-ride car parks near Biei Station⁴⁰
  • a system showing congestion at tourist spots⁴¹
  • study of a lodging tax and a "sustainable tourism tax" charged on parking⁴²

• Population and aging:

  • The population was over 20,000 until the late 1960s⁵. It peaked in 1960¹.
  • It fell to 9,668 in the 2020 census and 9,337 in the preliminary 2025 count².
  • At the end of August 2026, 38.9% of residents were 65 or older (3,531 people) and 8.4% were under 15 (calculated from the town's age table)⁴³.

• Revitalization:

  • The premium brand "Bieitiful" (ビエイティフル) was launched in 2015⁵.
  • The digital local currency "Be-coin" (Beコイン) started in 2021⁵.
  • A training center for new farmers opened in 2019 in the former Bishin Elementary School⁵.

• Shrines: Biei Shrine (美瑛神社, Higashi-machi 4-chōme) is the destination of the fire festival⁵⁶¹. Smaller shrines stand in farming districts such as Bibaushi, Misawa and Okikineushi¹.
• Museums:
  • Misora (丘のまち郷土学館「美宙」) opened in 2016⁵. It is the base for "Biei studies" (美瑛学), covering the town's history, culture, nature and astronomy. Its observatory has a 400 mm reflecting telescope nicknamed "Pikari" (ぴかり). Admission is free. Since April 2026 it has been open 10:00–18:00 and is closed on Tuesdays⁵⁸.
  • Takushinkan (拓真館) is Maeda Shinzō's photo gallery¹⁵.
  • Seibi-no-Mori (西美の杜), an art space in the former Seibi Elementary School, closed in 2021 and has since reopened. It now shows 54 replicas of Banksy works. In 2026 it is open 1 May–30 November, Friday to Monday, and admission is ¥1,000⁵⁹.
• Biei soft stone (美瑛軟石): The 1952 stone station, shop fronts on Hondōri and Oka-no-Kura use this local stone. It is one of Biei's registered assets in the "Most Beautiful Villages" association, together with the hills and the Blue Pond²⁵¹⁹.
• On screen: Biei's hills have appeared in the drama Kita no Kuni kara '98 Jidai, the films Gakkō II and Ai o Tsumu Hito (2015), and GLAY's "Winter, again" music video¹⁵.

Little Ainu history specific to Biei is documented. The Biei Tourism Association says Ainu people came to Biei mainly to hunt and that no kotan was recorded here¹⁴. Their language lives on in place names: Biei (piye), Bibaushi (pipa-us-i), Ubakubetsu (u-pak-pet), Bebetsu (pe-pet) and Chūbetsu (ciw-pet)^2021222324. An Ainu legend tells of Optateshike on the eastern border. It says the mountain was once married to Meakandake, and after a violent quarrel they threw spears at each other. Meakandake's crater is the wound⁶⁰. No Ainu cultural facility in Biei was found. The Kamikawa Ainu heritage is presented at the Asahikawa City Museum, which also runs Ainu place-name walking tours⁶¹.

None found. Biei's two past sister-city agreements have both ended⁵¹:

• Saalbach, Austria (from 1973).
• Iwaki Town, Aomori Prefecture (岩木町, from 1992). Iwaki is now part of Hirosaki.

• Maeda Shinzō (前田真三, 1922–1998): landscape photographer from Tokyo, known as "the magician of color." His photographs of the Biei hills put the town on the tourist map, and he founded the Takushinkan gallery⁷⁴¹⁵.
• 31st Kimura Shōnosuke (木村庄之助, 1940–2026): born in Biei. A sumo tate-gyōji (top-rank referee) from 2001, he held the senior title Kimura Shōnosuke from May 2003 to November 2005. He died on 26 February 2026⁷⁵.
• Abiko Satoru (安彦諭): born in Biei. Won silver in the 5 km classical cross-country race at the 1998 Nagano Paralympics. He was Japan's first Paralympic medalist with an intellectual disability⁷⁶.
• Niki Kenta (二木健太, b. 1984): born in Biei. Former volleyball player⁷⁷.