Oshamambe 長万部町

The name comes from Ainu, but its exact origin is disputed.³ The main theories are:

• O-samampe (オサマㇺペ), "river mouth + flatfish". This means a river mouth where many flounders are caught, and it is the theory the town adopts.³ The tourist association and the town's anniversary book give it as "the place where there are flounders" (カレイのいるところ).¹⁷¹
• O-samam-pet (オサマㇺペッ), "river whose lower course lies sideways". On this reading the name referred to the Oshamambe River, whose lower course runs parallel to the shore.³
• Upas-samampe (ウパㇱサマㇺペ), "snow + flatfish". A legend tells of a god who caught a great flounder at sea and had it enshrined on a mountain. When flounder-shaped snow patches were left on the mountain in spring, the fishing season had begun.³

The town uses the spelling "Oshamambe" in English. English Wikipedia also gives the romanization Oshamanbe-chō, which is why "Oshamanbe" also appears.⁷

• Before 1600: people have lived here since the Jomon period.¹ Because the area lies on the narrow neck of the Oshima Peninsula, it was long a key route between the Sea of Japan and Pacific coasts.³
• 1604: the area came under Matsumae domain control.³
• 1669: in Shakushain's War, the Ainu army armed with poison arrows faced the Matsumae troops, who fought with muskets, across the Kunnui River in late July. The Ainu forces were pushed back and eventually retreated to Shibechari, now Shinhidaka. Shakushain was later poisoned at a peace banquet.¹
• 1773: a fishery station (番屋) was built, which also served as lodging for shogunate officials and travelers. Iinari Shrine (飯生神社) was founded in the same year to pray for good catches.¹⁸¹⁹
• 1799–1821: a road was cut from Oshamambe to Abuta in 1799. This was the forerunner of National Route 37. The same year the area came under direct shogunate rule. It was returned to Matsumae in 1821.³
• 1855–1857: the Nambu domain built a guard post, the Oshamambe Jinya, against Russian incursions. Sources differ on the dates: the town history gives 1855 to 1857 with about 20 men, while the tourist association gives 1856.¹⁸¹⁴ The earthworks survive and have been a National Historic Site since 1974.¹
• 1864–1873: Oshamambe became a village (村並) under village head Takeuchi Yahei in 1864. It was placed in Yamakoshi District, Iburi Province, in 1869. In 1873 Takeuchi was made deputy village head (副戸長). The town treats that appointment as its founding (開礎).¹¹⁸
• 1885: a fire destroyed more than half of the town. In the same year Ainu whalers made the last recorded Ainu whale hunt off Oshamambe.³¹
• 1891: the village sent advertisements to prefectures across Japan to recruit settlers.³ The sources consulted do not say which prefectures most of the Meiji settlers came from.
• 1903: the Hokkaido Railway opened between Mori and Nettappu, with stations at Kunnui, Oshamambe and Futamata.¹⁸
• 1918–1932: Shizukari was transferred from Benbe Village in 1918. The Chōrin Line (now the Muroran Main Line) opened to Shizukari in 1923, which made Oshamambe a junction, and it was completed in 1928. The Setana Line branched off at Kunnui from 1929. In 1932 the Kuromatsunai locomotive depot moved to Oshamambe.³
• 1943–1945: Oshamambe became a town on 11 February 1943. It was bombed by US carrier aircraft in 1945. After the war, 12 farm households from Okinawa settled here under the emergency land-clearing program.¹
• 1955: natural-gas test drilling produced gas and hot water, and this became Oshamambe Onsen. The town began supplying town gas in 1959.³¹
• 1962–1965: the Shizukari gold mine closed for the second time in 1962.³ Population peaked in the mid-1960s. The town's fire-department records give 17,173 in 1964, and the 1965 census counted 15,349.³
• 1987: Tokyo University of Science opened its Oshamambe campus with 277 first-year students.¹ The Setana Line closed in the same year and was replaced by buses.³
• 1993: the Hokkaido Southwest Offshore Earthquake shook the town at an estimated seismic intensity of 6. About 500 houses were damaged and losses exceeded ¥5 billion.¹
• 1997–2001: Oshamambe IC on the Hokkaido Expressway opened in 1997 and Kunnui IC in 2001.³ In 1998 Oshamambe was chosen as a Hokkaido Shinkansen stop.³
• 2000: Mount Usu erupted. Oshamambe opened 12 shelters, which held 1,316 evacuees at the peak.¹
• 2004–2005: after a residents' survey, the town left the North Oshima merger talks and opened merger negotiations with Kuromatsunai.³ The joint council was set up in June 2004. The town's anniversary book says it was dissolved at its ninth meeting in December 2004, while Japanese Wikipedia gives 31 January 2005.¹³
• 2011: the tsunami from the Great East Japan Earthquake caused about ¥800 million of damage to the town's ports and scallop farms.¹
• 2016–2019: scallops began dying in large numbers around 2016. By 2019 the harvest had fallen to about a tenth of normal. In 2016 the town also put up a monument at the Shakushain battlefield, and in 2019 it organised the "Shakushain Road" memorial-banner relay.²⁰¹
• 2022: a column of saline water about 30 m high burst up in the Iinari Shrine grounds on 8 August. It stopped by itself on 26 September.¹ The same year the Wanpō scallop brand was launched.¹
• 2023: the town marked 150 years since its founding and 80 years as a town. The university campus reopened after a four-year pandemic pause.¹
• 2026: Futamata Station closed on 14 March.²¹ On 27 August heavy rain washed out the Muroran Main Line between Shizukari and Koboro, suspending the Hokuto limited express. Service resumed on 10 September.²²²³

• Setting: the town lies at the innermost point of Uchiura Bay, where the Oshima Peninsula narrows. It faces the bay to the east.⁸ Most of the town is hills and mountains. Flat land runs in a strip along the bay and along the Oshamambe, Monbetsu and Kunnui rivers, where the farmland is. The coast is mostly sandy beach.⁸³ Forest covers 20,594 ha of the town's 31,076 ha of assessed land.¹
• Mountains: Mount Oshamambe (長万部岳, 972.4 m) lies on the divide between the Sea of Japan and Pacific drainages, and both seas can be seen from the top. Mount Shamanbe (写万部山, 498.8 m) carries a first-order triangulation point and gives wide views over the bay.¹⁷
• Shizukari Wetland (静狩湿原): the southernmost lowland sphagnum bog in Hokkaido, at the foot of Mount Shamanbe. It has sundews, cotton grass and irises.²⁴¹⁷ It was a national natural monument from 1922. The designation was lifted in 1950. Settlers were then taken in and the Shizukari plain was developed.³
• Coast: a stretch of "singing sand" beach at Shizukari runs about 4.5 km. It was found in 2003 by local schoolchildren. The tourist association says singing sand is known from only about 30 places in Japan.¹⁷
• Other natural features: Chayagawa Falls (茶屋川の滝) is 70–80 m high, one of the largest in Oshima. A giant beech at Ōmine is estimated at 300–400 years old, with a trunk about 4 m around, and is said to be the northernmost giant beech.¹⁷
• Climate: JMA normals for 1991–2020 give an annual mean of 7.7 °C, with January at −4.1 °C and August at 20.6 °C. Annual precipitation is 1,296.1 mm, total snowfall averages 600 cm, and the annual maximum snow depth averages 75 cm.²⁵ The highest temperature on record is 32.6 °C, reached on 18 July 2021 and on three days in July 2025. The lowest is −20.5 °C, on 23 January 1986. The deepest snow was 113 cm, on 25 February 2013, and the wettest hour brought 90 mm on 1 September 1985.²⁶ The town is a designated Special Heavy Snowfall Area (特別豪雪地帯).³
• Hazards: the 32 km Kuromatsunai Lowland Fault Zone runs from Suttsu to Oshamambe. An earthquake on it could reach seismic intensity 6+, and the probability of one within 30 years is estimated at 2–5%.¹

• Fisheries: in FY2022 the town landed 17,573.5 t worth about ¥5.88 billion. Scallops made up 17,138.1 t (97.5% of the weight) and ¥5.62 billion (95.5% of the value). Other catches were hokki surf clams (121.3 t), salmon (132.1 t) and hairy crab (10.1 t, about ¥48 million).¹ Nearly all members of the fisheries cooperative farm scallops. They hang each shell on long ropes (耳吊り), so the scallops grow near the surface and need no de-sanding.¹
• Scallop crisis and recovery: mass die-offs began around 2016. In 2019 the harvest fell to about 10% of normal, and the cause has still not been identified. Oshamambe was the first town on Funka Bay to bring its harvest back.²⁰ The town's anniversary book puts the FY2021 harvest at about 16,000 t.¹
• Dairy and farming: milk output was 9,288 t in FY2022, worth about ¥834 million.¹ Enrich Mini Tomato (エンリッチミニトマト) grew out of a regional-revitalization project with Tokyo University of Science. The tomatoes are grown hydroponically in greenhouses at Oshamambe Agri (長万部アグリ), a company set up in 2017. The growing medium is made from local scallop shells, and the greenhouses are heated with hot-spring water. In 2023 the company had 7 employees.¹²⁷
• Town gas: since 1959 the town has supplied the town centre with gas from its own gas plant. This is the only gas utility in Hokkaido still run by a local government.³
• Employment: the 2020 Census counted 2,662 workers: 512 in primary industries, 697 in secondary and 1,436 in tertiary.¹ Manufacturers with four or more employees shipped goods worth about ¥8.73 billion in the 2020 industrial survey.⁴
• Tourism: Hokkaido estimated 234,400 visitors in FY2025, up 26.9% from 184,700 the year before. Of these, 217,900 were day-trippers and 16,500 stayed overnight. June, the festival month, was the busiest at 46,200.²⁸
• Population: the population fell from 5,926 in the 2015 Census to 5,109 in 2020, a drop of 13.8% (calculated).¹⁴ In 2020, 2,088 people (40.9%) were 65 or older and 415 (8.1%) were under 15.⁴ The town is designated a depopulated area.³ The student population depends on the university's intake. The campus took no new students from 2020 to 2022, and in 2023 it reopened with 132 first-year students in International Design Management.¹
• Revitalization: plans centre on the Shinkansen. The station will be elevated, about 28 m tall and 263 m long, with a free passage linking the east and west sides of town. High-school students helped draw up the design concept, "Onsen steam over Funka Bay, a crossroads of people and eras".¹

• Iinari Shrine (飯生神社): founded in 1773 to pray for good fishing, it enshrines Amaterasu, Ōkuninushi and Ukanomitama. It later received a share of the enshrined spirit of Fushimi Inari in Kyoto. It moved to its present site in the Jin'ya-machi district in 1933, according to Japanese Wikipedia's article on the shrine. Its article on the town gives 1926.¹⁹³ Matsumae Kagura, which is performed here, was designated a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property on 8 March 2018.¹
• Peace Memorial Hall (平和祈念館): opened on 15 August 1983, the anniversary of the end of the war. It shows works by Maruki Iri and Toshi, a seated Kannon by the monk-sculptor Enkū, Muromachi-period and Asian Buddhist statues, and a garden of sculptures by Hongō Shin. Admission is free. The hall is open 10:00–16:00 and closed on Mondays, the day after public holidays, and over New Year. It has no staff on site, so contact the Board of Education (01377-2-2748) before visiting.¹⁴
• Ueki Sōetsu Memorial Hall (植木蒼悦記念館): about 100 works by the ink painter and haiku poet Ueki Sōetsu, including his kappa paintings. Admission is free.¹⁴
• Town Center (町民センター): its local-history room shows an Ainu dugout canoe, attush textiles with Funka Bay patterns, and a corner on the novelist Wada Yoshie. The "Railway Village" (鉄道村), opened in November 2000, displays items donated by retired railway workers.¹⁴

• Place names and the 1669 battle: many Ainu place names survive in the town, and the Kunnui battlefield of Shakushain's War is here.¹ In 2016 the town put up a monument by the Kunnui River. Its inscription says that winning or losing the battle does not mean one way of life was better than the other, and it honours the dead of both sides.¹ For the 350th anniversary in 2019, the town and the Hokkaido Ainu Association organised the "Shakushain Road" relay. Participants carried memorial banners made from about 1,000 patchwork pieces 240 km, on foot and by boat through 13 municipalities, to Shinhidaka.¹
• Marine traditions: until about the Meiji era, Oshamambe's Ainu kept up traditional fur-seal hunting and whaling. The last recorded Ainu whale hunt off Oshamambe took place in 1885.¹³ Scallops were also part of daily life. At night people lit ratchako lamps, a scallop shell set on a three-pronged stick and filled with burning fish oil.¹
• Ekashi Kenru (エカシケンル, "honoured house of the ancestors"): from 1931 until about 1937 a preservation society ran an Ainu culture exhibition house in Asahihama.¹ Shiba Rikiya (司馬力弥, Ainu name Pepenrek, 1882–1954), the fifth chief of the Oshamambe Ainu, helped set it up. In 1949 he performed a bear-sending ceremony that began in Hakodate and was finished the next day at Asahihama. This is said to have been the last one held by the town's Ainu.⁴²
• Today: the Oshamambe branch of the Hokkaido Ainu Association was formed in 1946.³ Around 60% of the town's scallop fishermen are Ainu, and the Wanpō brand project was funded through the national Ainu policy-promotion grant.¹ Two ruunpe and two chijiri garments and a dugout canoe are designated town cultural properties (2011).¹

None found. Oshamambe has no formal sister-city ties in the sources consulted. In 2019 it signed a three-town cooperation agreement with Kuromatsunai and Toyoura, nicknamed the "Hashikko Dōmei" (はしっこ同盟, "Edge Alliance").³¹ In 2015 it signed a comprehensive partnership agreement on regional revitalization with Tokyo University of Science.¹

• Shiba Rikiya (司馬力弥, 1882–1954): fifth chief of the Oshamambe Ainu and co-founder of the Ekashi Kenru exhibition house.⁴²
• Ega Torazō (江賀寅三): Shiba Rikiya's cousin, born in Monbetsu, Oshamambe. He was a Christian evangelist and a founding director of the Hokkaido Ainu Association.⁴²
• Wada Yoshie (和田芳恵): novelist and Naoki Prize winner, born in Kunnui. A corner of the Town Center is devoted to him.¹⁴
• Nishibe Susumu (西部邁): economist and conservative critic.³
• Sakurada Tomoya (櫻田智也): writer, born in Oshamambe in 1977. He wrote an essay for the town's anniversary book.¹