Moseushi 妹背牛町

• The name comes from the Ainu mose-us (モセウㇱ). The phrase can be read in two ways: "the place where nettles grow thickly" (mose = nettle, us = to grow in clusters) or "the place where [people] always cut grass". Ainu place-name scholar Yamada Hidezō (山田秀三) notes that nobody now knows which meaning was intended⁷.
• The first kanji spelling was 望畝有志. The current spelling 妹背牛 caught on after Moseushi Station opened on today's Hakodate Main Line in 1898. The railway station was the first place this spelling appeared⁷²¹.
• The kanji were chosen only for their sound. The town now makes a feature of the 牛 ("cow") in its name through its cow mascots and the station sign. The 2022 JR Hokkaido notice calls Moseushi a name that appears on nationwide lists of hard-to-read place names¹⁷.

• Ainu era. Written records say little about Ainu settlement inside today's town boundaries. No archaeological record was found. The town's Ainu name is the main surviving trace.
• 1885. A Hokkaido Government survey party entered the Uryu Plain (雨竜原野)³.
• 1889. The Kazoku Kumiai Uryu Farm (華族組合雨竜農場), a farm run by a group of aristocrats, opened on the Uryu Plain⁷.
• 1893. Moseushi was first cleared for farming under a farm run by Mori Genzō (森源三), the second principal of Sapporo Agricultural College. People from outside Hokkaido broke the first ground, but few of them stayed. Most later settlers moved in from other parts of Hokkaido, which gave the town a mix of regional customs³. The town celebrated its 100th anniversary of settlement in 1992²².
• 1896. A foundry opened, the start of local manufacturing. Farm-machinery and bag making followed³.
• 1898. Moseushi Station opened on 16 July on the government railway²¹. Moseushi Shrine (妹背牛神社) was founded the same year⁷.
• 1897–1920s. Farmers began trying paddy rice around the turn of the century, and planting grew quickly through the Taishō era. By 1927 about 90% of the farmland was in rice³.
• 1923. In January, Moseushi Village split off from Fukagawa Village (深川村). The Moseushi Commerce and Industry Association was also founded that year³.
• 1931. A new village office was built. It is now the Moseushi Local History Museum (郷土館)²².
• 1952. Moseushi became a town³.
• 1955. The population peaked at 9,421 in the census. Many people then moved to the big cities during Japan's high-growth years³.
• 1965. The Hakodate Main Line was double-tracked through the town³.
• 1978. The Moseushi Commercial High School girls' volleyball team won the national championship⁷.
• 1984 and 1998. A stove maker went bankrupt in 1984, and a cosmetics company closed its Moseushi factory in 1998³.
• 1985. A new town hall was completed, and the 1931 office was restored to its original look as the museum²².
• 1993. Moseushi Onsen Peperu opened¹⁴. Yusui Park Urara and the park golf course were built from 1995 to 1998³.
• 1998. Fukagawa-Nishi IC on the Fukagawa–Rumoi Expressway opened in April, about 3.5 km from the town center³.
• 2003. The Curling Hall opened¹², and farmers began planting apple mint on paddy ridges¹¹.
• 2004–2005. A North Sorachi merger council was formed and then dissolved⁷.
• 2009. Moseushi Commercial High School closed in March under Hokkaido's school consolidation plan⁷.
• 2014. The empty A-Coop supermarket reopened as "Wakachiai Moseushi Hiroba" (わかち愛もせうしひろば), a community and elderly-welfare hub²³.
• 2022. The "Mose-[cow]" station sign went up on 28 April¹⁷.
• 2024. Sorachi Chuo Bus closed its Hokuryu Line in March. Hokuryu Town started a replacement Hokuryu–Moseushi Line on 1 April¹. Moseushi Station began accepting Kitaca IC cards on 16 March²¹.
• 2026. In May, the Hokkaido Government's preliminary 2025 Census count put the population at 2,291⁴. Governor Naomichi Suzuki visited Urara park and the Curling Hall on 4 August as part of his "Naomichi Café" community meetings. Local speakers told him about some 40 years of curling in the town¹⁵.

• Landforms. Moseushi sits at the north end of the Ishikari Plain, in the middle of the Uryu Plain. The whole town is flat alluvial land with no mountains⁷⁸¹. The town lies between 141°53′ and 141°59′ E and between 43°35′ and 43°44′ N¹.
• Rivers. The Ishikari River forms the southern border and the Uryu River the western border. The Taiho River (大鳳川) runs along the north³. The smaller Meoi River (芽生川) also crosses the town⁷.
• Land use. About 70% of the land is farmland, mainly rice paddies. The town describes itself as one of Hokkaido's typical rice-growing areas¹. The main green spaces are town parks. No national, quasi-national or prefectural natural park was found within the town.
• Climate. The town has an inland climate on the Sea of Japan side of Hokkaido. Summer highs often pass 30 °C, and winter lows can drop below −20 °C. The first snow usually falls in early November and the snow melts in April, so snow covers the ground for about half the year⁸.
• Climate figures. Moseushi has no weather station of its own. At the nearby Fukagawa AMeDAS station, the 1991–2020 normals are:
  • Annual mean temperature 6.8 °C.
  • January mean −7.3 °C, with an average daily low of −13.0 °C in January and February.
  • August mean 20.6 °C, with an average daily high of 25.8 °C.
  • Annual precipitation 1,044 mm and total annual snowfall 929 cm. The normal deepest snow cover is 111 cm²⁴.
• Records at Fukagawa. The highest temperature is 36.1 °C (6 August 2021). The lowest is −29.7 °C (2 February 1982 and 7 February 1998). The deepest snow cover is 158 cm (7 March 1987)²⁵.

• Agriculture. The 2015 Census of Agriculture and Forestry counted 216 farm households, down from 340 in 2000. Farmland covered 3,403 ha, and 3,334 ha of it (98%) was paddy. Planted area was 2,387 ha of rice, 490 ha of wheat and barley, 100 ha of beans and 20 ha of flowers. Farms are getting larger: in 2015, 28.7% of households farmed 20 ha or more, compared with 4.7% in 2000³.
• Rice varieties. Farmers mainly grow Yumepirka (ゆめぴりか), Nanatsuboshi (ななつぼし) and Kirara 397 (きらら397). The local farm cooperative is the Moseushi branch of JA Kita-Ibuki (JA北いぶき)⁷.
• Branding. The town promotes a "Moseushi brand" of low-pesticide rice grown with herbs on the paddy ridges. The herbs are also cut and used in local products¹¹³.
• Flowers. Growers produce more than 100 kinds of flowers, including gypsophila, statice and alstroemeria. Much of the crop goes to Tokyo, Osaka and other big cities²⁶.
• Manufacturing. Six small plants make castings and bags, and some employ foreign technical interns³. Local companies include Sato Chūkō (佐藤鋳工) and Hokuren Hōzai (ホクレン包材)⁷.
• Jobs. The 2015 census counted 1,470 workers: 35.9% in primary industries, 17.9% in secondary and 46.2% in tertiary³.
• Commerce. Store numbers peaked at 121 in 1962. Empty shopfronts are increasing as owners retire without successors³.
• Tourism. The town recorded about 180,000–230,000 visitors a year between FY2017 and FY2022, including 192,400 in FY2022. Almost all visitors came from within Hokkaido¹. The town describes the Peperu hot spring, Urara park and the Curling Hall as its only tourist area. Visitor numbers at the hot spring have been falling as the building ages and nearby spas renovate³.
• Population. The population fell from 9,421 in 1955 to 3,091 in 2015 and 2,693 in 2020. People aged 65 and over made up 47.1% of the population in 2020³¹. The preliminary 2025 Census count is 2,291, a fall of 14.9% in five years⁴. The town's population vision projects fewer than 1,000 residents by 2060³.
• Revitalization.
  • The town runs settlement-promotion schemes.
  • It uses furusato nozei donations for the herb-farming program, curling promotion and promotion of Peperu²⁷.
  • A car show organized by local car enthusiasts with about 20 behind-the-scenes helpers, "Oraga Jiman no Kuruma Daishūgō" (おらが自慢の車大集合), began with about 30 cars. Its ninth edition on 5 July 2026 drew about 200 cars and about 2,000 visitors²⁸.
  • A regional revitalization cooperator (地域おこし協力隊) now works as an aufguss master at Peperu¹⁵.

• Performing arts. The town lion dance is kept alive by the Moseushi Lion Dance Preservation Society (妹背牛町獅子舞保存会)⁷. Its lion head and tengu mask were the first items designated as town cultural properties and are on show at the museum²².
• Moseushi Shrine (妹背牛神社). The shrine is at 466 Aza-Moseushi (listed as 字妹背牛畑466番地). It enshrines Ōkunitama, Ōnamuchi and Sukunahikona and ranked as a village shrine (村社) under the old system³⁹.
• Moseushi Local History Museum (妹背牛町郷土館). The building was the village office, built in 1931. Its symmetrical plan, with the office and the assembly hall on either side, follows the French-influenced style of the Meiji era. It holds about 600 items from the pioneer period onward, including early farm tools. Entry is free²².

Little has been written about Ainu history or archaeological sites within Moseushi, and no Ainu cultural facility operates in the town. Ainu language survives mainly in names. The town name comes from mose-us (see Name origin)⁷. The hot spring's name, Peperu, was chosen from the Ainu pe ("water") and peru ("spring"), according to the facility¹⁴. Its two baths are called Retar-no-yu (レタラの湯) and Kunne-no-yu (クンネの湯)¹⁴. These are commonly glossed as the Ainu words for "white" and "black" (unverified gloss).

None found.

• Tomoko Yoshihara (吉原知子, b. 1970). Volleyball middle blocker who went through Moseushi Commercial High School. She played at three Olympics (1992, 1996 and 2004) and captained Japan from 2003¹⁸.
• Saya Yamashita (山下彩耶, b. 2001). Idol and entertainer from Moseushi⁵³. She has been appointed a town ambassador (町応援大使)⁷.
• Masato Sekiyoshi (関吉雅人, b. 1974). Former professional baseball outfielder with the Orix BlueWave (1993–1997). He never played a first-team game⁵⁴.