Nanporo 南幌町

• "Southern Horo": Until 1962 the town was Horomui Village (幌向村). The name comes from the Ainu Poromoi (ポロモイ). The neighboring city of Iwamizawa has a district also called Horomui, so the name was changed to Nanporo (南幌, "southern Horo") when the village became a town. It was read "Minamihoro" until 1968.¹⁴⁸
• What Poromoi means: There are two theories.
  • "A place where the river bends and flows slowly." This theory says the name refers to a bend in the Ishikari River.¹⁴
  • "A great plain." This is the reading given by the Britannica International Encyclopaedia (Japanese edition).⁸
• Related names: Horomuibuto (幌向太) was the old meeting point of the Ishikari and Horomui rivers. It is now in Iwamizawa. Horomui Station (幌向駅) opened there in 1882 on the Horonai Railway, now the JR Hakodate Line. It is not in Nanporo.¹³
• Ainu names inside the town: The Yubaributo (夕張太) district takes its name from the Ainu Yūharifuto (ユウハリフト). The big Tsurunuma swamp (鶴沼) was called Rabushito (ラブシトウ) by the Ainu.²⁷

• Before settlement: The area was wet lowland, with swamps and winding rivers. Tsurunuma (Rabushito) was about 28 km around in the Ansei era (1854–1860). A place called Kizumari (木詰) was said to be blocked by a million pieces of driftwood. Clearing it was the start of flood control in the town.²⁷ The sources checked record no archaeological sites.
• 1873–1883: Horomuibuto (now Iwamizawa) grew as a base for the Kaitakushi's Horonai coalfield, and Horomui Station opened there in 1882. Horomui Village was created in January 1883. It first centered on land now in Ebetsu, Iwamizawa and Kita Village, which was later transferred to those municipalities.¹³
• 1886–1887: Yamada Bushichi (山田武七), a settler from Niigata Prefecture, heard from the Ainu about good farmland at Yūharifuto. He looked at the land in June 1886 and moved there with his family in May 1887. This was the beginning of Yubaributo.²⁷ Work to open up the present town area began in 1888.¹³
• 1892–1894: Ishikawa Kunimitsu (石川邦光), whose home was Kakuda in Igu District, Miyagi Prefecture, surveyed the land in 1892. He had already led settlers to Muroran in 1870, but that attempt failed and he went home. His retainer Mizuno Tahei (水野太平) then divided the whole village into a grid based on the American township system. The survey was reportedly finished in 1894, and the grid still shapes the farmland today.²⁷
• 1893–1895, group settlement: In May 1893 Ishikawa and his settler group moved onto the right bank of the Yubari River, founding the Ishikawa settlement (石川部落). In 1894 they brought over a branch of the Hachiman shrine from Kakuda.²⁷ Also in 1893, Itagaki (板垣贇夫) of Mie Prefecture moved seven households in from Iwamizawa, starting "Ise Kaikon" (伊勢開墾). A group of 50 households from Mie poled their boats up the Ebetsu River in 1894, and 30 more households followed in 1895.²⁷ Settlers from Fukui Prefecture opened the Ōno clearing (大野開墾地).²⁷
• 1895–1912: The village headman's office opened on 22 November 1895. The Horomui Canal (幌向運河), with locks, was finished in 1896 and carried supplies in and produce out by boat. Several elementary schools opened in 1899, and the Horomui post station (幌向駅逓所) opened in 1912 to lodge travelers and carry freight.²⁷ Its present building dates from March 1928 and lodged about 550 guests a year, mostly officials and peddlers. It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in September 2006.²⁸
• 1909: Horomui became a second-class village on 1 April.¹⁴
• 1922–1936, taming the Yubari River: Floods were a constant problem. A new channel for the Yubari River was dug from 1922. It opened fully on 17 August 1936, when the old channel was closed off.²⁷
• 1930–1975, Yubari Railway: The Yubari Railway's Kuriyama–Nopporo section opened in November 1930, with Minami-Horomui and Bansui stations in the village.²⁷²⁹ Minami-Horomui was renamed Nanporo in 1963. Passenger service ended in April 1974 and the line closed on 1 April 1975.²⁹
• 1962: Horomui Village became Nanporo Town on 1 May; the reading "Nanporo" replaced "Minamihoro" in 1968.¹⁴
• 1990s, commuter-town boom: Housing lots were sold to people working in Sapporo. The population rose from 5,665 in 1990 to a peak of just over 10,000 in 1998.⁵
• 1991–1995: The Nanporo Onsen day-use building opened on 16 February 1991, and its hotel wing on 24 March 1995.¹⁵
• 2003–2005: A merger council with Yuni and Kuriyama chose the name "Higashi-Sapporo City". Because Naganuma stayed out, Nanporo would have been cut off from the rest of the new city. Most voters opposed the merger in an October 2004 referendum, the town assembly voted it down, and the council was dissolved in March 2005.¹⁴
• 2010: A sister-town agreement was signed with Taragi, Kumamoto Prefecture.³⁰
• 2022: The population began to rise again in July 2022, for the first time in 24 years.³¹ The town marked 130 years since settlement and 60 years as a town.³²
• 2023–2025: Harreppa opened on 3 May 2023.¹⁷ Nanporo Onsen was renovated and reopened in January 2025.²⁰ The Chūjurin section of the Dōō-ken Renraku Dōro (Central Hokkaido ring road) opened at the end of March 2025. The town is now developing about 23 ha of new industrial land near it.³³

• Setting: Nanporo sits on the Ishikari Plain, slightly south-west of the center of Hokkaido. Rivers surround it: the Yubari River flows west along the north, the Chitose River flows north along the west, and the old Yubari River runs along the south-east.⁸⁵ Across these rivers are Iwamizawa (Kurisawa) to the north-east, Naganuma to the south-east, and Kitahiroshima and Ebetsu to the south-west and west.⁵
• A very low, flat town: It is among the lowest ground in the Ishikari Lowland. The highest point, at 19.9 m, is the top of the Yubari River levee. The lowest is 6 m and the average is 9 m. About 45% of the town is peat.⁸ The town hall stands 10 m above sea level. The town measures 11.765 km east to west and 13.850 km north to south.¹⁵
• Land use: Farmland covers 5,570 ha, of which 5,140 ha is paddy. Forest covers only 141 ha.³⁴ The tourism site sums it up: "no sea, no mountains, no amusement park, no zoo".³⁵
• Water and views: Mie Lake (三重湖) is a popular fishing spot for large herabuna (crucian carp).³⁶ From Mie Green Park on the Yubari riverbank you can see the Tokachi Range to the east, Mt. Teine to the west, Mt. Eniwa and Mt. Tarumae to the south, and the Shokanbetsu mountains to the north.³⁷
• Climate (town observations): Annual mean temperatures were 7.9–9.5 °C between FY2020 and FY2024. The highest recorded in that period was 36.3 °C (FY2023) and the lowest −24.2 °C (FY2020).¹⁵ The town's older data include −26.1 °C in FY2014.⁵ About 7 m of snow falls in a year.³⁸

• Farming: Agricultural output in 2024 was an estimated ¥5.40 billion. Rice brought in ¥3.37 billion, vegetables ¥0.97 billion, wheat ¥0.53 billion and beans ¥0.35 billion.³⁴ The 2020 farm census counted 170 farm businesses. They planted 2,120 ha of rice, 1,692 ha of wheat, 657 ha of soybeans, 111 ha of sugar beet and 43 ha of leeks. Twenty-six farms worked more than 50 ha.³⁴
• JA Nanporo (JAなんぽろ), FY2025 sales: rice 145,213 bales (¥4.05 billion); wheat 9,496 t (¥1.25 billion); onions 975 t; cabbage 844 t, plus 244 t for processing; open-field leeks 511 t (¥206 million); watermelon 235 t; broccoli 187 t.¹⁸ Rice shipments totaled 8,015.5 t: Nanatsuboshi 33%, Kirara 397 27%, Emimaru 20.9% and Yumepirika 9.5%.¹⁸ The co-op has 144 farm households, averaging 37.8 ha each.¹⁸
• Jobs: At the 2020 Census, 3,902 residents had jobs: 17.9% in farming and other primary industries, 17.9% in construction and manufacturing, and 59.5% in services.¹⁵
• Manufacturing: In 2023 there were 22 factories with 348 workers, shipping goods worth about ¥5.62 billion.¹⁵ Businesses sit in two industrial parks, Nanporo and Bansui. About 23 ha of new industrial land is being prepared along the new ring road.³³ Local makers include Sapporo Menshō (noodles), Three B (tamogi mushrooms) and Nissei Bio (barley-grass drink).²
• Tourism: Hokkaido counted 451,300 visits to Nanporo in FY2025, 15.8% more than the year before. Of these, 429,900 were day trips and 21,400 overnight stays.³⁹
• Population: The resident-register population fell to 7,378 on 1 January 2022, then rose to 7,785 by 1 January 2024²¹ and 8,380 by 1 September 2026.⁵ At the 2020 Census, 2,555 residents (34.9%) were 65 or older and 693 were under 15.³⁴ The town explains the recovery by its support for families. It offers grants of up to ¥2 million to child-rearing households building a home, and eligible families can buy lots in Nanporo New Town Midorino (南幌ニュータウンみどり野) at half price. New housing projects include the Midorino Kita Smile Village and Midorino Zero Carbon Village.⁴⁰⁵

• Shrines: The settler groups each brought their own gods. The Mie group set up Isuzu Shrine (五十鈴神社) in 1896–97 with a branch of the Ise Grand Shrine. The Ishikawa group built a Hachiman shrine from Kakuda in 1894. Shiratori Shrine (白鳥神社) was founded in 1895, and the Fukui settlers of the Ōno clearing set up another Hachiman shrine in 1897. Most of these sites are now marked only by posts.²⁷
• Historical markers: The board of education put up 36 markers from 1986 onward. They mark old ferries, schools, shrines, the canal lock and railway stations. A guide booklet, Nanporo Shiseki Meguri (なんぽろしせきめぐり), is available at Pororo, the town hall, Byuro and other public buildings.²⁷
• Local history room (郷土資料室): Four rooms in the Pororo lifelong-learning center (Sakaemachi 3-3-1) cover the pioneers and their battle with floods, old farm tools, household goods and Yubari Railway items, and old film of the town. Open 10:00–17:00; closed Mondays and 30 December to 5 January.⁴⁵

Little Ainu history is recorded for Nanporo itself. What survives is mostly in place names: Poromoi (Horomui), Yūharifuto (Yubaributo) and Rabushito (Tsurunuma). One of the town's historical markers tells how the Niigata settler Yamada Bushichi learned from the Ainu in 1886 that the land at Yūharifuto was good for farming.¹⁴²⁷ There is no Ainu cultural facility in the town. The nearest are the Ainu Culture Exchange Center, Sapporo Pirka Kotan (アイヌ文化交流センター サッポロピリカコタン), in Koganeyu, Minami Ward, Sapporo, which displays about 300 items that visitors may handle,⁴⁶ and Upopoy, the National Ainu Museum and Park, in Shiraoi.⁴⁷

• Taragi (多良木町), Kumamoto Prefecture — sister town since February 2010. The link began at the 1999 National Sports Festival in Kumamoto. Players from Nanporo's town-hall baseball team, representing Hokkaido, stayed with families in Taragi. The town's page gives the signing date as both 2 February and 22 February 2010. It offers residents a grant of ¥20,000 per person for group study trips to Taragi.³⁰ Nanporo Suisei shochu is distilled in Taragi.⁴²
• Keihoku (京北町), Kyoto Prefecture: listed as a sister town on Japanese Wikipedia. Keihoku is now part of Ukyō Ward, Kyoto City. The town's current sister-town page does not mention it, and the year it was established is unverified.¹⁴³⁰
• No international sister cities were found.

• Uchida Kotoko (内田ことこ, born 2002): JLPGA professional golfer. She won her first tour title at the Minebea Mitsumi Ladies Hokkaido Shimbun Cup in July 2025, leading from the first round to the last.⁶⁰
• Iwano Yūji (岩野祐二, born 1979): entertainment producer and lyricist. He created the Hokkaido idol group Fruity (フルーティー).⁶¹
• Takagake Yūji (高懸雄治, born 1941): economist specializing in international finance, and professor emeritus at Sapporo Gakuin University.⁶²