Nemuro 根室市

The name comes from Ainu, but the list of Ainu place names published by the Hokkaido Government gives several different readings for 根室²²:

• Ni-mu-oro (ニムオロ), "place where trees are thick" (木・つまる・所). This reading is attributed to Nagata Hōsei. The list notes that a Sakurai family genealogy, quoted in the margin of the Matsumae-ki, records a fight in 1648 between the Ainu of Nimuoro (樹林) and Shuyumu (数無) in which many died. It adds that Ainu oral tradition tells the same story²².
• "Place where driftwood collects": another reading of ni-mu-oro, taken from a book on the origins of railway station names²². Japanese Wikipedia describes it as a stream where driftwood gathers at the river mouth⁸.
• Mem-or-o-pet (メムオロオペッ, メモロペッ), "river with spring pools", from the same station-name source²².
• Ni-moy / ni-muy (ニモイ, ニムイ), "tree bay" or "tree winnow". This reading goes back to Matsuura Takeshirō, who said the place was once heavily wooded. Yamada Hidezō added that much ancient buried wood lay on the sea floor, and that muy (a winnowing basket) can mean a bay shaped like one²².
• Older glosses attributed to Uehara (上原) include nii-mo-oro, "a quiet place with trees", and ni-no-oro, "where there are sea urchins". The list rates both as uncertain²².

Early Japanese records wrote the name as 子モロ or 根諸⁸.

• Prehistory and Ainu era: in 2008, 77 Late Jōmon clay figurines and grave goods from the Hattaushi 20 site (初田牛20遺跡) became a Hokkaido tangible cultural property². Ainu communities built the peninsula's chashi (fortified sites) between the 16th and 18th centuries²³.
• Matsumae and shogunate era: in 1754 a sea route opened through the Goyōmai Strait, and a trading post (運上屋) was set up at Nemuro². In 1789, abuse by the Hidaya merchant house's staff sparked the Kunashiri–Menashi uprising, and 37 Ainu were executed at Nokkamappu (see "Ainu heritage")²⁴. The trading post moved from Nokkamappu to Nemuro in 1790⁸. In 1792 Russian envoy Adam Laxman sailed into Nemuro on the Ekaterina to return the castaway Daikokuya Kōdayū. His crew of 42 wintered here for eight months and left in June 1793²⁵. The shogunate took direct control in 1799 and put a magistrate's office in Nemuro². The merchant Takadaya Kahei founded Kotohira Shrine in 1806².
• Meiji development: in September 1869, Kaitakushi judge Matsumoto (松本判官) arrived with 130 settlers and opened a colonization office². The Nosappu lighthouse was lit in 1872². A government livestock farm, now Meiji Park, opened in 1875²⁶. From 1882 to 1886 Nemuro was the seat of Nemuro Prefecture, one of Hokkaido's three short-lived prefectures². In 1886, 220 tondenhei (soldier-settler) households founded Wada Village². Japanese Wikipedia dates the Higashi-Wada company to May 1886 and the Nishi-Wada company to May 1888²⁷. By 1900 the town had more than 14,000 people and was the liveliest in eastern Hokkaido, living on crab, kombu and salmon².
• Railway and port: Nemuro became an open port in 1910². The line to Nemuro, now called the Hanasaki Line, opened in full on 5 August 1921, and the city marked its centenary in 2021². The Nemuro Takushoku Railway ran between Habomai and Nemuro from 1929 until 1959². Charles and Anne Lindbergh landed at Nemuro port on 24 August 1931 during their North Pacific flight².
• War and occupation: an American air raid on 15 July 1945 burned about 80% of the town centre. By 2 September the Soviet Union had occupied Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands². On 1 December 1945 Mayor Andō Sekiten petitioned General MacArthur to put the islands under US protection². The first recorded Soviet seizure of a fishing boat, the 16-ton Dai-ni Akatsuki Maru near Taraku-tō, came in April 1946². A storm in May 1954 killed 191 fishermen².
• City status and the North Pacific fishing era: Nemuro City was formed in 1957 and took in Habomai Village in 1959². The city's chronicle says the population passed 49,000 in 1965². Under a 1963 kombu-harvesting agreement for the waters off Kaigara-jima, 280 kombu boats returned there that June for the first time in 18 years². After the 200-mile fishing zones of 1977 and the 1992 ban on high-seas salmon fishing, catches fell sharply². The census never counted that many: its figure peaked at 45,817 in 1975²⁸.
• Disasters: the Nemuro-hantō-oki earthquake of 17 June 1973 (M7.4) sent a tsunami into Hanasaki port. The 1994 Hokkaido Tōhō-oki earthquake also brought tsunami damage². The 2011 Tōhoku tsunami reached 2.8 m on the city's Pacific coast².
• Exchanges and friction with Russia: visa-free exchange visits with residents of the four islands began in April 1992². In August 2006 a Russian patrol boat fired on the fishing boat No. 31 Kisshin Maru near Kaigara-jima, killing one crewman². In 2015 Russia banned salmon drift-netting in its 200-mile zone, and the city turned to scallop, sockeye and trout-salmon aquaculture trials².
• Recent years: Hanasaki (2016), Hattaushi (2019) and Higashi-Nemuro (2025) stations closed. On 15 March 2025 Nemuro became Japan's easternmost railway station again, for the first time in 64 years². The Meiji dairy plant in Nemuro closed in June 2020 after more than 60 years². A new city hall opened on 7 May 2024². On 13 September 2026, Mayor Ishigaki Masatoshi was re-elected²⁹.

• Landform: the city covers the Nemuro Peninsula and has sea on three sides³⁰³¹. It measures 100.84 km east to west and 54.87 km north to south. Its easternmost point, 146°26′26″E, is in the Habomai Islands³.
• Rivers and lakes: the Bettōga River is 40.6 km long and the Onnebetsu River 18.4 km. The Furen River (82.5 km long, 571.6 km² basin) enters Lake Furen³. Lake Furen (風蓮湖) is a brackish lagoon of 64.17 km², about 96 km around³¹⁸. Smaller lakes include Onnetō (温根沼, 5.72 km²) and Chōbushi-ko (長節湖, 0.41 km²)³.
• Coast and islands: Shunkunitai (春国岱) is a sandbar 8 km long and 1.3 km wide, built up as three dune ridges. The oldest formed about 3,000 years ago³². Yururi-tō, an uninhabited island of about 1.98 km², lies roughly 2.6 km off the coast. Landing is prohibited³³.
• Protected areas:
  • Notsuke-Furen Prefectural Natural Park (野付風蓮道立自然公園, designated 27 December 1962)¹⁷
  • Lake Furen–Shunkunitai Ramsar site (6,139 ha, shared with Betsukai, registered 8 November 2005)¹⁷
  • Yururi Island and Cape Ochiishi nature conservation areas¹⁷
  • In FY2022, the Notsuke Peninsula–Lake Furen–Nemuro Peninsula area was named a candidate quasi-national park¹⁷.
• Climate (JMA Nemuro, 1991–2020 normals)³⁴:
  • Annual mean 6.6°C
  • February is the coldest month (mean −3.8°C, mean low −7.1°C)
  • August is the warmest (mean 17.4°C, mean high 20.9°C)
  • Precipitation 1,040.4 mm and snowfall 159 cm a year, with a typical deepest snow cover of 34 cm
  • Fog on 91.5 days a year (2010–2020), including 20.1 days in July
• Records³⁵:
  • Highest temperature: 34.0°C on 26 May 2019
  • Lowest temperature: −22.9°C on 18 February 1931
  • Deepest snow: 115 cm on 21 March 2014
  • Wettest day: 211.5 mm on 11 September 1992
  • Strongest gust: 42.2 m/s on 8 October 2006
  • In 2025, 38 days reached 25°C or more, the most on record.
• Drift ice: sea ice reaches the coast in late winter. In 2025 it was seen from 4 to 27 March³.

• Fisheries: in 2024 the city landed 51,616 t worth ¥22.74 billion¹⁴. That is almost half of Nemuro Subprefecture's catch value of ¥46.19 billion³⁶. The main species in 2024¹⁴:

  Species	Catch (t)	Value (¥ billion)
  Pacific saury	21,146	9.67
  Octopus	3,060	2.54
  Cod	7,139	2.50
  Kombu	973	1.85
  Salmon	924	1.01
  Sea urchin	30	0.80
  Sardine	7,545	0.54

  Hanasaki crab was only 78 t (¥114 million)¹⁴. Catches of that crab fell from about 1,000 t a year before 1977 to under 100 t after 2000¹⁵.

• Saury: Hanasaki is Japan's largest saury landing port². Its 2025 saury landings were estimated at ¥10.66 billion, over ¥10 billion for the first time since 2015².

• Seafood processing: this is the main manufacturing industry. Processed marine products reached 43,193 t worth ¥39.98 billion in 2024¹⁴. In the 2021 economic census, food manufacturing had 52 establishments and 1,392 workers. It made up ¥43.2 billion of the city's ¥47.9 billion in factory shipments¹⁴.

• Agriculture: mostly dairy farming. In 2020 there were 105 farm businesses on 8,472 ha of land, all upland and pasture, and 84 farms kept 10,549 dairy cattle¹⁴.

• Trade and port: in 2024, 380 foreign-trade ships called at the port. Imports came to ¥8.87 billion and exports to ¥42 million¹⁴.

• Tourism: 303,200 visitors in FY2024, up from 211,100 in FY2020¹⁴. The Michi-no-Eki Swan 44 Nemuro passed 4 million visitors in September 2024².

• Population: people aged 65 and over numbered 8,012 of 21,918 residents at the end of 2025²⁸. In FY2024 deaths exceeded births by 308 and departures exceeded arrivals by 178²⁸. Foreign residents numbered 930 in August 2026⁶. A Nemuro–Vietnam exchange association was founded in 2019².

• Revitalization: aquaculture trials for sockeye salmon (2019) and trout salmon (2023), and a council aiming to farm king crab (2020)². Local sardines were branded Nemuro Nanasei (根室七星) in 2018². Furusato nozei (hometown-tax) donations came to ¥14.69 billion in FY2024 and ¥12.26 billion in FY2025, according to national figures quoted by the Furusato Choice portal³⁰. A group promoting sauna culture formed in 2024. The city's chronicle describes Nemuro as "said to be where the sauna originated"².

• Japan Heritage: on 19 June 2020 the story "The Sacred Land of Salmon: a 10,000-year journey along the Nemuro Strait" (「鮭の聖地」の物語～根室海峡一万年の道程～) was recognised as Japan Heritage (日本遺産)². The tourism association tags Meiji Park as one of its sites²⁶.
• Shrines and temples: Kotohira Shrine (金刀比羅神社) is at Kotohira-chō 1-4. Its mikoshi hall and festival museum are free and open daily 9:00–17:00 (until 16:30 from 15 January to 15 March)⁴⁴. The main hall of Seiryū-ji (清隆寺) was built in 1925 with timber from Kunashiri and was registered as a national tangible cultural property in 2024².
• Music: the city's chronicle records a song monument to the folk song Nemuro Jokō-bushi (根室女工節), put up in Tokiwadai Park in 2005². In 2018 the local big band East Point Jazz Orchestra became the first group from the Kushiro–Nemuro region to win a Hokkaido regional culture award².
• Museums:
  • Nemuro City Museum of History and Nature (根室市歴史と自然の資料館), Hanasaki-kō 209⁴⁶. It took this name in 2004².
  • Northern Territories Museum at Nosappu (free)⁴⁷
  • Bōkyō no Ie (望郷の家), a free viewing house for the islands⁴⁸
  • Northern Four Islands Exchange Center "Ni-Ho-Ro" (北方四島交流センター, opened 2000)⁴⁹²
  • Saburō Iida exhibition room at the Cultural Hall, opened in 2022²

• The 1789 uprising: in 1789, 130 Ainu from Kunashiri (41) and Menashi (89) rose up against Hidaya's managers and guards. The city lists violence, threats, sexual assault, cheating and unfair "compensation" demands among the causes. The rising killed 71 Japanese²⁴. Matsumae forces reached Nokkamappu (ノッカマップ) in July, and 37 Ainu were beheaded there on the 21st of that month²⁴.
• Memorials: a grave marker for the 71 Japanese dead (横死七十一人之墓), dated 1812, now stands at Nosappu. The city lists it as a city-designated tangible cultural property under the name 寛政の蜂起和人殉難墓碑²⁴. Japanese Wikipedia calls it a city historic site instead⁵⁰. Since 1974 the Nokkamappu Icharpa, an Ainu memorial rite, has been held there at the end of every September²⁴. The Nemuro Ainu Association (根室アイヌ協会) organizes it⁵⁰⁵¹.
• Chashi: the city has 32 chashi sites, and 24 of them are a national historic site (designated in 1983 and 1984)²¹²³. Most are cliff-edge forts cut off by semicircular or rectangular dry moats. Visitors can walk to the Onnemoto (ヲンネモトチャシ) and Nokkamafu 1 and 2 chashi. The Japan 100 Fine Castles stamp is kept at the Museum of History and Nature, the tourist information centre by Nemuro Station, and the Northern Territories Museum at Nosappu²¹.
• Place names:
  • Nosappu comes from not-sam, "beside the cape". It first named the kotan (village) there and later the cape itself²².
  • Nokkamappu is not-ka-oma-p, "place on top of the cape". Legend says villagers carried salmon from the stream up to their kotan on the headland²².
  • Onnetō (温根沼) means "big lake" in Ainu⁵².

• Sitka, Alaska, USA: 19 December 1975, through North Pacific fishing. The 50th anniversary was marked in October 2025⁶⁶².
• Kurobe, Toyama Prefecture: 19 October 1976. The city chose Kurobe because many people from there helped build Nemuro. A mutual disaster-aid agreement followed in 1999, and staff exchanges began in 2010⁶⁶².
• Severo-Kurilsk, Sakhalin Oblast, Russia: 27 January 1994⁶⁶².
• Four Extremities exchange (四極交流): since 3 May 1991, with Wakkanai and with the former towns of Kosaza (now part of Sasebo) and Sata (now part of Minamiōsumi), the other ends of mainland Japan²⁶⁵.
• English Wikipedia also lists Tebedu, Malaysia. The city's own sister-city page does not, so this is unverified³¹⁶⁶.

• Saburō Iida (飯田三郎): composer, born in Nemuro (died 2003). A room about his work is at the city Cultural Hall².
• Masashi Terashima (寺島柾史): writer, born in Nemuro⁶⁷.
• Naoki Yanase (柳瀬尚紀): scholar of English literature and translator⁸.
• Yoshiko Endō (遠藤淑子): manga artist⁸.
• Ryōji Ikeda (池田良二): copperplate printmaker from the city. His work decorates the entrance hall of the new city hall².
• Kaito Fujimori (藤森海斗): baseball player who went to Hanasaki Elementary School. He played for Japan in the U-18 Baseball World Cup and was drafted by the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2025².