Honbetsu 本別町

• Honbetsu comes from the Ainu pon-pet (ポンペッ), "small river", the Ainu name of the Honbetsu River (本別川)⁴. The Hokkaido government's Ainu place-name list quotes the scholar Yamada Hidezō. He noted that the river is fairly large and was probably called "small" only in comparison with the Biribetsu River on the opposite bank²¹. The name first appears in writing as "Honhetsu" (ホンヘツ) in documents of the Hokkaido Development Commission (開拓使) from 1869⁷. The railway station was read Ponbetsu (ぽんべつ) until 20 April 1961, when the reading changed to Honbetsu¹⁵.
• Toshibetsu River (利別川), the main river through the town: usually explained as tus-pet, "rope river". One story says the Tokachi Ainu once stretched a rope across its mouth to keep Kushiro Ainu from coming upstream²².
• Yūtari (勇足): from e-san-pitar, a gravel bar that "sticks its head out" into the river. The kanji were first read as the Ainu name, "Esanpitara". People from elsewhere could not read them that way, so the on'yomi reading "Yūtari" took over. An 1896 map puts the original gravel bar on a sharp bend of the Toshibetsu about 2 km downstream of the village²³.
• Biribetsu (美里別): Nagata Hōsei gives pir-pe, "whirlpool water", and Yamada gives pir-pet, "whirlpool river". Yamada notes that the river now carries little water because some is taken for hydropower²⁴.
• Biranbetsu (美蘭別): pira-un-pet, "river with cliffs"²⁴.

• Ainu era: the rivers and districts of the town all carry Ainu names (see above). The town museum's upper-floor exhibition runs from the Paleolithic to the present and begins with "Indigenous peoples and Ainu culture"²⁵. The sources consulted do not describe specific archaeological sites or Edo-period trading posts in Honbetsu.
• 1869: the name "Honhetsu" first appears in Hokkaido Development Commission records⁷.
• 1893: Shinohara Sōmatsu (篠原相松) from Nagano Prefecture settled at present-day Kōyō-chō. He is counted as the first Wajin (Japanese) settler⁷.
• 1897: large farms began to clear the land. The Toshibetsu Farm (利別農場), with settlers from Tokushima, took Yūtari, and the Hakodate Farm (函館農場) took Senbiri⁷. Tōjō Gisaburō (東條儀三郎), headman of Tatsue Village (立江村, now part of Komatsushima), led the Tokushima group²⁶.
• 1902: a joint village office for Honbetsu and five other villages opened, serving about 450 households⁷.
• 1910: the government railway's Abashiri Line opened from Ikeda to Rikubetsu on 22 September, with a station at "Ponbetsu"¹⁵. The Michi-no-Eki's own history dates the railway to 1909 (明治42年) instead²⁷.
• 1915–1933: six villages merged into Honbetsu Village (1915). It became a first-class village in 1923 and a town in 1933⁷⁴.
• Meiji era to the end of the Second World War: the Imperial Army's Tokachi Branch Remount Depot (軍馬補充部十勝支部) was based in the town. Baron Nishi Takeichi, equestrian gold medallist at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, served there during the war²⁵¹⁶.
• 15 July 1945: 43 US carrier aircraft bombed the town center. They killed 40 people and burned or destroyed 392 houses⁷¹⁷.
• 1946: an agricultural training institute opened on the former depot land. It became the Prefectural Agricultural College in 1974¹⁹.
• 1961–2006: the railway became the Ikehoku Line (池北線) in 1961. In 1989 it passed to the third-sector Hokkaido Chihoku Kogen Railway as the Furusato Ginga Line, and it closed on 21 April 2006¹⁵.
• 1991–2003: the Kilmore (Australia) sister-city tie came in 1991, the town's 90th anniversary year²⁶. The first Kirameki Town Festival was held in 1997⁷. In 2000 the town launched its centennial programme and opened the Taiyō no Oka (太陽の丘) medical, health and welfare zone, and the main centennial events were held in 2001⁷. The Komatsushima friendship tie and the Genki-kun mascot also date from 2001²⁶⁸. The Dōtō Expressway reached Honbetsu on 8 June 2003²⁸.
• 2006–2009: in 2006 residents adopted the declaration "Building the town through welfare" (福祉でまちづくり)⁷. The old station reopened as Michi-no-Eki Stella Honbetsu on 26 April 2009²⁹.
• 2016: four typhoons struck Hokkaido⁷. In August the Honbetsu weather station recorded 421 mm of rain, its wettest month on record³⁰.
• Recent: the town has declared itself a Zero Carbon City¹⁷. Senbiri Junior High School closed in 2014⁷, and since January 2017 its building has housed a bouldering gym³¹.

• Setting: Honbetsu is inland in northeastern Tokachi, between 43°03′ and 43°14′ N and 143°23′ and 143°47′ E⁶. The Toshibetsu River (利別川) flows south through the town center toward its meeting with the Tokachi River in Toyokoro. The Biribetsu (美里別川) and Honbetsu (本別川) rivers are its local tributaries⁴²².
• Hills: named peaks include Ukotakinupuri (ウコタキヌプリ), Mt. Yoshitsune (義経山, 294 m), Mt. Suwa, Mt. Oku-Suwa and Mt. Kamui (神居山). Mt. Yoshitsune is part of the Shiranuka Hills (白糠丘陵)⁴¹³. On clear days the Kamuiyama lookout has views to the Daisetsuzan range³².
• Land use: 53.2% forest, 27.9% farmland, 1.3% pasture and 1.2% residential land⁶.
• Climate: inland Tokachi continental climate, with long sunshine hours and a wide range of temperatures²⁰. JMA normals for 1991–2020 at the Honbetsu station:
  • Annual mean temperature: 6.3 °C.
  • January: mean −8.9 °C, average daily minimum −16.1 °C.
  • August: mean 20.0 °C, average daily maximum 25.4 °C.
  • Precipitation: 790.6 mm a year.
  • Snow: 276 cm of total snowfall a year, with an average maximum depth of 49 cm³³.
  • Records: 37.2 °C on 26 May 2019 and −29.1 °C on 28 January 2012. The deepest snow was 116 cm, on 4 February 2025³⁰.

• Agriculture: the main field crops are wheat, beans, sugar beet and potatoes. Dairy and beef cattle are raised across the farmland, and some areas breed heavy ban'ei draft horses²⁰⁴. Agricultural output is ¥12,113 million, manufacturing shipments are ¥29,251 million and retail and wholesale sales are ¥14,479 million. These figures come from the town's statistics page, which is labelled FY2024 (令和6年度) but does not give a survey year for each figure⁶.
• Bean brands: the Tokachi Honbetsu Kireimame Association (十勝本別「キレイマメの会」) was formed in August 2007 by local processors, groups and the town. Its packaging, designed with Musashino Art University, aims at health- and beauty-minded shoppers. The products are sold year-round in Sapporo and Obihiro and in major department stores¹¹.
• Companies and energy: Meiji Co., Ltd. has a Honbetsu Factory in the town, and J-Power (Electric Power Development Co.) runs the Honbetsu Power Station⁴.
• Education: Hokkaido Prefectural Agricultural College, at Nishi-Senbiri 25-1, teaches dairy, beef, field-crop and horticulture courses. It was given specialized training college (専修学校) status in 2006¹⁹.
• Tourism: Hokkaido counted 510,700 visitors to Honbetsu in FY2025, up 1.4% on the previous year. Of these, 496,300 were day visitors and 14,400 stayed overnight. September was the busiest month, with 92,100 visitors³⁴.
• Population: the town lost 10.1% of its people between the 2015 and 2020 censuses¹ and has fallen further since, to 5,761 in August 2026². Responses include the Zero Carbon City and "Health and Sports" declarations¹⁷, furusato nozei donations through the town's own form and seven portal sites³⁵, and support for new farmers and business start-ups³⁶.

• Shrines and old trees: the oak grove at Yūtari Shrine (勇足神社) survives from the Toshibetsu Farm era and includes oaks said to be 500 years old. It has been a town natural monument since 1980. A single oak more than 300 years old stands at Kami-Oshoppu Shrine (上押帯神社), designated in 1984⁵⁰. Japanese Wikipedia also lists the temple Dainichisan Mitsugon-ji (大日山密厳寺)⁴.
• Other natural monuments: luminous moss (ヒカリゴケ), found at unusually low altitude in a wartime storage cave (designated 1990). The cave entrance has collapsed and it is not open to the public. The pea clam mameshijimi (マメシジミ), an Ice Age relict, was found in Honbetsu Park in 1968 and confirmed in 1976. It was the first record in Hokkaido, where the species was not thought to live. The population and its habitat were designated in 2007, and the site is not disclosed⁵⁰.
• Museum: the Honbetsu History and Folk Museum (本別町歴史民俗資料館) is at Kita 2-chōme 4-2. The ground floor covers army horses, Baron Nishi and the 1945 air raid. The upper floor covers Ainu culture, settlement, forestry and daily life. The permanent and themed exhibitions are free, and special exhibitions cost adults ¥100 (residents) or ¥150 (visitors). Open Tuesday–Saturday 9:00–16:00, closed on public holidays and over the New Year²⁵.
• Welfare as identity: according to the town, the 2006 declaration "Building the town through welfare" was adopted by the "consensus of all residents"⁷¹⁷.

The town's own name and those of its main rivers and districts all come from Ainu, and the Hokkaido government's place-name list records them: pon-pet, e-san-pitar, pir-pet and pira-un-pet²¹²³²⁴. Sawai Tomeno (澤井トメノ, 1906–2006), who lived in Honbetsu, was a key bearer of the Tokachi dialect of Ainu. Born to Japanese settler parents, she was adopted as a baby by Kiyokawa Neusarmon, a Honbetsu Ainu woman and noted reciter, and was raised speaking Ainu. In 1989, when she was described as the only person in Tokachi who could still speak Ainu freely, she helped the Honbetsu Board of Education compile a classified dictionary of Tokachi–Honbetsu Ainu and was one of the first two winners of the Ainu Culture Prize in 1997⁵¹. The History and Folk Museum has a permanent section on indigenous peoples and Ainu culture²⁵. The sources consulted mention no dedicated Ainu cultural center or regular public Ainu ceremony in the town.

• Mitchell Shire, Victoria, Australia: Honbetsu signed a sister-city agreement with the town of Kilmore in 1991, the town's 90th anniversary year. It grew out of "town citizen jet" visits that began in 1985. Kilmore merged into the new Mitchell Shire in 1994, and Mitchell kept the partnership²⁶⁶⁶.
• Komatsushima, Tokushima Prefecture: a friendship city since 2001, when Honbetsu marked its centennial and Komatsushima its 50th year as a city. The tie goes back to the settlers from Tatsue Village who came to Yūtari in 1897²⁶.

• Taga Shin (多賀新): born 14 December 1946 in Honbetsu. A copperplate engraver who won a prize at the Central Print Grand Prize Exhibition (セントラル版画大賞展) in 1983. His etching Sankyoku (三極) became the design for a ceremonial apron (keshō-mawashi) of yokozuna Harumafuji⁶⁷.
• Sawai Tomeno (澤井トメノ, 1906–2006): an Ainu culture bearer of the Tokachi dialect and a first-year winner of the Ainu Culture Prize (1997)⁵¹.
• Nishi Takeichi ("Baron Nishi", 西竹一): equestrian gold medallist at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. He was not born in Honbetsu but served at the Tokachi Branch Remount Depot there during the war, and the town museum tells his story²⁵.