Memuro 芽室町

The name comes from the Ainu mem-oro-pet (メムオロペッ). Mem means a small pond fed by a spring. The whole name means "the river that comes from the spring pond."

• Hokkaido's Ainu place-name list gives Nagata Hōsei's reading, "river coming from the spring pond" (泉池より来る川). Said as one word it became Memoro, which was written with the characters 芽室. The list also gives Yamada Hidezō's form, Memoro-pet, "river at the place of the spring pond." It rates the etymology at confidence level B¹⁷.
• The town's own versions: The town's introduction gives メム・オロ・ペツ, "the river where springs well up"⁵. The town profile gives メム・オロベツ, "a river that flows from the springs and ponds at a river's source"². These are wordings of the same etymology, not rival theories.
• The characters: 芽 ("bud") and 室 ("room") were picked only for their sounds¹⁷.
• Earliest record: The name first appears as "Memoro" (メモロ) on a map of the Tokachi River drawn by the surveyor Minagawa Shūshūdayū (皆川周修太夫) in 1800⁵.
• Bisei (美生): The name of this district and river comes from pipa-iro-pet (ピパイロペッ), "a river with many freshwater mussels." The characters 美生 were first read Pipairo, and the reading later changed to Bisei¹⁸. The name also survives in Mt Pipairo (ピパイロ岳).

• 1800: Minagawa Shūshūdayū surveyed the Tokachi River. His map lists Memoro (two houses), Hibairo (three houses), Hiuka, Otoepenai and Kene⁵.
• 1808: A shogunate report on the Tokachi trading post (『東蝦夷地各場所様子大概書』) names Memoro as one of the 40 Ainu settlements (kotan) in Tokachi⁵.
• 1886: The first Japanese settlers arrived: Suzuki Jūtarō (鈴木銃太郎), Watanabe Masaru (渡辺勝) and Takahashi Rihachi (高橋利八; reading of the given name unconfirmed)²¹⁹.
• Meiji and Taishō settlers: Many of Memuro's pioneers came from Gifu Prefecture. This link is the reason for today's friendship with Ibigawa, Gifu²⁰. One Gifu migrant, Matsuhisa Ichiji (松久市治), built a farmhouse in 1918 that still stands²¹.
• 1893–1906: A joint village office for the Kasai, Katō and Kamikawa districts opened at Shimo-Obihiro in 1893. In 1900 Memuro got its own office covering six neighbouring villages: Nishi-Shikari, Biman, Bisei, Hatai, Hitomai and Kuttari. Hitomai and Kuttari split off in 1903, and Memuro became a second-class village in 1906².
• 1907: The railway was completed between Asahikawa and Kushiro², and Memuro Station opened on 8 September²².
• 1919–1942: Memuro became a first-class village in 1919. Mikage Village split off in 1921. The Teikoku Seima flax mill opened in 1935 and closed in 1968. Memuro became a town in May 1942².
• 1947: Gateball was invented in Memuro⁸.
• 1958–1961: The Kami-Memuro area was transferred from Shimizu in 1958. In 1961 the Tokachi Agricultural Experiment Station, a national field-crop research division and a Hokuren starch plant were completed².
• 1968–1975: The 1968 Tokachi-oki earthquake struck in May. The Shin-Arashiyama observation deck was built in November 1969 for the town's 70th anniversary¹⁰. The Nippon Beet Sugar factory followed in 1970, the ski area in 1971, and the Shin-Arashiyama-sō lodge in 1975².
• 1987–1989: Ōnokuni won his first top-division title and became yokozuna in 1987. The first national gateball tournament was held the same year, along with a "sea and mountains" friendship declaration with Hiroo. In 1989 Memuro became a sister city of Tracy, California².
• 1990s: Work on Bisei Dam started in 1990², and the dam was finished in 1999¹. The Dōtō Expressway's Memuro IC opened in 1995¹. The Memu-road station-front plaza (めむろーど) opened in 1998. In 1999 the town marked its centenary with a new emblem and opened the Nenrin local history museum².
• 2006–2012: Six "Memuro Heritage" sites were chosen in 2006¹⁰. The friendship with Ibigawa began the same year²⁰. Meiji's Tokachi plant opened in 2008², and Corn Fried Rice was launched¹⁴. A community bus started running in 2011. The Memuro Machi-no-Eki visitor centre opened in 2012².
• 2016–2021: An August 2016 typhoon did enough damage to be declared a severe disaster (激甚災害). A new town hall opened in January 2021².
• 2023–2024: In September 2023 the town assembly rejected a supplementary budget that included about ¥52 million in support for the third-sector company running Shin-Arashiyama Sky Park. The park stopped operating on 10 October 2023, except for the observation deck, which the town kept open under its own management¹¹. The Hidaka Sanmyaku-Erimo-Tokachi National Park, which includes Memuro, was designated on 25 June 2024²³. Memuro declared itself a Zero Carbon City in September 2024².
• 2025–2026: On 4 February 2025 the snow depth rose by 98 cm in one day, the Memuro station's record²⁴. The town published its renewal plan for Shin-Arashiyama in January 2026¹². The plan says the old Shin-Arashiyama-sō lodge will be demolished, not reopened²⁵. The town also said site works for a private-sector Park-PFI project in Memuro Park would start in September 2026. The project will include a mont-bell outdoor store of about 250 tsubo (about 826 m²), the same size as mont-bell's store in Minamifurano. It will also have two eateries, one of them a Doutor café, and indoor play facilities²⁶.

• Setting: The town lies on the western Tokachi Plain, between 42°43′ and 43°01′ N². The Tokachi River, the Memuro River and the Bisei River (美生川) water its farmland¹³.
• Land use: Farmland covers 214.41 km² (42%) and forest 201.57 km² (39%)². Of the 21,593 ha of forest, 15,389 ha is national forest².
• Mountains: The southwest rises into the Hidaka Mountains. The highest point is Mt Pipairo (ピパイロ岳, 1,917 m). Other peaks are Mt Fushimi (伏美岳, 1,792 m) and Mt Memuro (芽室岳, 1,754 m)¹¹⁹. These mountains belong to the Hidaka Sanmyaku-Erimo-Tokachi National Park (日高山脈襟裳十勝国立公園), designated in 2024. At 245,668 ha it is Japan's largest national park, and Memuro is one of its 13 municipalities²³.
• Lake: Lake Bisei (美生湖) is the reservoir behind Bisei Dam, completed in 1999¹.
• Climate (JMA Memuro station, 1991–2020 normals): The annual mean is 6.3 °C. January averages −8.3 °C and August 19.8 °C. Yearly precipitation is 971.6 mm, sunshine 1,854.8 hours and snowfall 396 cm. The normal deepest snow is 80 cm²⁷. The town tourism association describes Memuro's skies as among the clearest in Japan, with an average clear-sky rate of 48% over ten years from fiscal 1996¹³.
• Records: The highest temperature was 38.1 °C on 26 May 2019 and the lowest −31.3 °C on 17 February 1978. The deepest snow was 126 cm on 4 March 2001²⁴. JMA's hourly data show 87 cm of new snow in the six hours from 01:00 to 07:00 on 4 February 2025²⁸. Japanese and English Wikipedia call this the largest six-hour snowfall recorded in Japan; JMA's national rankings were not checked, so that ranking is unverified¹¹⁹. Memuro is designated a heavy-snowfall area (豪雪地帯)¹.

• Farming scale: In 2024 the town had 563 farm households working 20,282 ha, about 36 ha each. 87.6% of farms work 20 ha or more².
• Farm output: Gross output in 2024 was ¥38.27 billion: ¥27.96 billion from crops and ¥10.31 billion from livestock².
• Field crops:
  • Wheat (2024): 6,510 ha and 40,200 t, ranking 2nd in Hokkaido for area and 3rd for harvest.
  • Potatoes (2023): 3,130 ha and 121,200 t, 2nd in Hokkaido on both counts.
  • Sugar beet (2024): 2,530 ha and 186,400 t, 6th.
  • Soybeans (2024): 1,350 ha, 6th².
• Livestock (2024): 45 dairy farms kept 7,044 dairy cattle, and 35,431 t of milk was shipped. The town also had 16,032 beef cattle and 22,964 pigs². JA Memuro sells its beef under the "Mirai Memuro-ushi" (未来めむろうし) brand. The cattle are mainly Holsteins and crossbreeds born on local dairy farms. They get feed kept separate from GM crops and no monensin (an antibiotic). The beef is sold mainly in supermarkets in Kantō, Tōkai and Chūgoku-Shikoku. The co-op also sells SPF pork and "Tokachi Kome-buta" (十勝こめ豚) pork from local farms²⁹.
• Manufacturing: Most industry is food processing, helped by good transport links and the town's position next to Obihiro². In 2024, 45 plants with 1,464 workers shipped goods worth about ¥83.1 billion². Memuro East Industrial Park holds about 230 companies¹. Major plants include Nippon Beet Sugar's Memuro factory (1970) and Meiji's Tokachi plant (2008)².
• Research: The NARO Hokkaido Agricultural Research Center has a Memuro site¹, and the Tokachi Agricultural Experiment Station is also here².
• Jobs (2020 Census): 22.3% of workers are in primary industry, 16.4% in secondary and 56.3% in tertiary².
• Population trends: 30.7% of residents with a known age were 65 or older at the 2020 Census². On the resident register the share was about 31.4% in August 2026³. Deaths far outnumber births: 253 against 85 in 2024². About 80% of residents live in the town centre².
• Tourism: At its peak in fiscal 1992, the Shin-Arashiyama ski area's lifts carried nearly 1.18 million rides¹¹. The ski area reopened in fiscal 2024 and had 77,872 users that year². The town adopted a tourism vision in May 2024³⁰.

• Performing arts: Memu-oro Daiko (めむおろ太鼓) is the town's local drumming tradition, established in May 1981².
• Sumo: Former yokozuna Ōnokuni, now stablemaster Shibatayama, brings his stable to Memuro for a summer training camp. He also hosts the Shibatayama Cup children's sumo tournament there¹³.
• Memuro Heritage (芽室遺産): In 2006 a residents' committee chose six sites from 140 public nominations¹⁰:
  • the view from the Shin-Arashiyama observation deck
  • Memuro Park and its daimyo oaks
  • the iris garden
  • the 10-sen windbreak
  • the Matsuhisaen farmhouse
  • gateball
• Museums: The Nenrin local history museum (ふるさと歴史館「ねんりん」) opened in December 1999 at Bisei 2-sen 38-15². It is free and open 9:30–16:30. It closes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and from 30 December to 6 January. Visitors can try old tools such as a stone mill, a large saw and a hand pump³⁹.

Little Ainu history specific to Memuro has been written down, and no Ainu cultural facility in the town was found. What survives is mostly in records and place names:

• Records: The 1800 survey map lists Memoro, Hibairo, Hiuka, Otoepenai and Kene as Ainu places along the Tokachi River⁵. The 1808 report counts Memoro among Tokachi's 40 kotan⁵. The explorer Matsuura Takeshirō (松浦武四郎), who later proposed the name "Hokkaido", visited Memoro twice and wrote that he stayed in an Ainu house there⁵.
• Place names: Memuro comes from mem-oro-pet, "river from the spring pond"¹⁷. Bisei and Mt Pipairo come from pipa-iro-pet, "a river with many freshwater mussels"¹⁸.
• Folklore: The local reader 芽室町郷土読本, quoted by the tourism association, tells of the Koropokkur (コロポックル). These little people fished and hunted along the Bisei River and built pit dwellings at Maruyama (丸山), near Shin-Arashiyama. The story says taller outsiders who came upriver after salmon later drove them away¹³. It is a legend, not archaeology.

For Ainu history and culture in the region, see nearby Obihiro.

• Tracy, California, USA — sister city since 5 August 1989. The link grew out of farming, especially bean growing. Middle-school homestay exchanges are the core of the programme, and a Memuro–Tracy Exchange Association was formed in 2015⁵².
• Ibigawa, Gifu Prefecture (岐阜県揖斐川町) — friendship city since 27 May 2006. Many of Memuro's pioneers came from Gifu. The tie grew from the work of the Memuro Gifu Prefecture Association, formed in 2000²⁰.
• Hiroo, Hokkaido (広尾町) — friendship since July 1987, under a "sea and mountains" (うみとやまのふれあい) declaration⁵³². The two towns signed a disaster mutual-aid agreement in March 2012². See Hiroo.
• Brazilian Gateball Union: Exchanges began in fiscal 1991, and Memuro signed a goodwill-exchange agreement with the union on 30 June 2012⁸.

• Ōnokuni Yasushi (大乃国康): The 62nd yokozuna, born Aoki Yasushi on 9 October 1962 in Bisei, Memuro. He won two top-division titles, including a 15–0 record in May 1987. In 1988 he ended Chiyonofuji's 53-bout winning streak. He retired in July 1991 and is now stablemaster Shibatayama¹³.
• Suzuki Kazunobu (鈴木和伸): Born Suzuki Eiji (鈴木栄治). He invented gateball in Memuro in 1947⁸.
• Nagahara Wakana (永原和可那): Badminton player who received the Town Citizens' Honour Award in October 2018²¹.
• Yago Taiki (矢後太規): Professional sumo wrestler¹.