Hiyama 檜山振興局

• An exclave region. Hiyama lies on the Sea of Japan side of the Oshima Peninsula. The Kumaishi area of Yakumo, in Oshima, splits it into three parts.¹
  • A southern block of four towns: Esashi, Kaminokuni, Assabu and Otobe.
  • A northern block of two: Setana and Imakane.
  • The island town of Okushiri.
  • It is the only subprefecture split like this.¹ Kumaishi was part of Hiyama until it merged with Yakumo in 2005 and moved to Oshima.³
• Coast. Five of the seven towns face the Sea of Japan; Assabu and Imakane are inland. Sheer cliffs and odd rock formations line the shore. In summer the sea is calm and clear, and sunsets over it are the region's signature view.¹
• Okushiri Island. It measures 11 km east to west and 27 km north to south, with about 84 km of coast. It lies about 61 km northwest of Esashi and about 42 km southwest of Setana. The nearest mainland point is the former Taisei Town (now part of Setana), about 17 km away.¹¹ (The bureau's profile says the island lies 27 km off Setana.)⁴
• Mountains and rivers. Kariba-yama in Setana is the highest peak in southern Hokkaido.¹²⁴ In the north, the Shiribeshi-Toshibetsu River flows west through Imakane and Setana. It has been chosen more often than any other river in the national government's ranking of rivers with the best water quality.⁴ In the south, the Assabu River and the Amanogawa water fertile farm valleys.¹
• Forest. Forest covers 215,758 ha, 82% of the land. Of that, 61% is national forest, 11% Hokkaido-owned forest and 28% private forest. Tree species typical of southern Hokkaido grow here, such as sugi (Japanese cedar), hiba (hinoki-asunaro) and beech.⁹ The trees of Honshu and Hokkaido meet in Hiyama: it is the northern limit of sugi and the southern limit of todomatsu (Sakhalin fir).¹
• The name. The region is named after the hiba forests that run from the Assabu River basin to the Amanogawa basin. Locals called hiba hinoki (檜), so the Matsumae domain called the area "Hiyama" (檜山), "hinoki mountains."¹³
• Protected areas. Two prefectural natural parks cover about 10% of Hiyama.¹
  • Hiyama Prefectural Natural Park (designated 20 April 1960; 17,073 ha). It includes Kamome-jima in Esashi, and the whole of Okushiri Island.¹²⁴ The Okushiri entry gives the park's area as 17,013 ha, from the town's figure.
  • Kariba-Motta Prefectural Natural Park (designated 23 June 1972; 22,647 ha). It includes Sanbonsugi-iwa on the Setana coast and extends into Shimamaki in Shiribeshi.¹²
  • Along the coast, strong winds and waves have shaped odd rocks and a varied shoreline.¹²
• Wildlife. Kamome-jima is a birdwatching spot where 131 species have been recorded. Brown bears are common. Reported sightings jumped from 166 in FY2024 to 691 in FY2025 (a provisional count to the end of December 2025).¹²

Climate. By Hokkaido standards Hiyama is fairly mild and has relatively little snow. It has a Sea of Japan climate. Spring is often sunny, but from May to August it is wetter and duller than central Hokkaido, and winter brings frequent wind-driven snow.¹⁴ The coast and the inland valleys differ sharply: the inland stations of Imakane and Uzura get more than twice Esashi's snowfall. JMA normals (1991–2020; for Okushiri, 2000–2020):

• Wind. The coast is windy. Esashi's mean wind speed is 4.7 m/s, mostly from the west-northwest.¹⁵ Okushiri's is 6.4 m/s.¹⁶ In 2025 Esashi averaged 4.6 m/s, against 3.3 m/s in Sapporo. It had 155 cm of snowfall that year, against 407 cm in Sapporo.¹

Prehistory

• Pirika, Imakane. The Pirika site is a Paleolithic site and a National Historic Site (designated 26 April 1994). Finds from the Pirika 1 site became an Important Cultural Property on 21 June 1991.²⁰⁴ They are shown at the free Pirika Paleolithic Culture Museum.²¹
• Okushiri. The archaeology room of the Okushiri Island Tsunami Museum shows finds from the island that run from the Initial Jōmon period to the Okhotsk and Satsumon periods.²²

Medieval Wajin settlement

• Earliest settlers. The bureau says serious Wajin development began in 1189. In that year, after Minamoto no Yoritomo conquered Ōshū, kin of Fujiwara no Yasuhira fled north to Hokkaido. This makes Hiyama's history one of the oldest in Hokkaido.¹
• Koshamain's War. Fighting between Wajin and Ainu broke out in 1456. In 1457 Takeda Nobuhiro put the rising down. He was a guest commander of Kakizaki Sueshige, lord of Hanazawa-date, one of the twelve Wajin forts of southern Hokkaido. Nobuhiro later became head of the Kakizaki family and is seen as the founder of the Matsumae clan.¹
• Katsuyama-date. Around 1470 Nobuhiro built Katsuyama-date on the Amanogawa in Kaminokuni, as a base for trade on the northern Sea of Japan.¹ Excavations found many dwellings and finds, including Ainu bone and antler tools and Ainu graves next to Wajin graves. These are seen as evidence that Wajin and Ainu lived together in the Middle Ages.¹
• The Matsumae name. In 1599 the fifth lord, Yoshihiro, changed the family name from Kakizaki to Matsumae.¹

The Matsumae domain and the herring era

• The Hiyama magistrate. Sources differ on the date.
  • Japanese Wikipedia says the domain opened the Hiyama forests at Esashi in 1673 and appointed a Hiyama magistrate (檜山奉行).¹³
  • The bureau says that in 1678 the Matsumae clan moved the Hiyama magistrate's office from Kaminokuni to Esashi to fell and replant hiba. It calls this the first public office in the region.¹
• Gold. In the early Edo period the Matsumae domain ran large gold workings on the upper Shiribeshi-Toshibetsu River in Imakane. They are said to have been the largest in Japan. Placer workings stretch for more than 14 km, and the Kanikan-dake mine lies near the source.¹
• Herring and the Kitamae-bune. From the late Edo period to the mid-Meiji period, herring catches made the coast rich. People said "Esashi in May outshines even Edo" (江差の五月は江戸にもない). Kitamae-bune trading ships called often and brought culture from Kyoto and the Kansai region.¹ Esashi's herring town is the subject of Japan Heritage story No. 038.²³

The Hakodate War (1868–69)

• Tate Castle. Assabu calls Tate Castle Japan's last Japanese-style castle. It burned when it fell.²⁴ The Matsumae domain built it in 1868 as its new seat. The lord moved in on the 3rd day of the 11th month of Meiji 1, and the former shogunate's army took the castle on the 15th (December 1868).²⁵ With the Fukuyama Castle site in Matsumae, it forms the National Historic Site "Matsumae clan castle sites" (松前氏城跡). Fukuyama was designated in 1935 and Tate Castle was added later. The bureau's list gives 20 September 2002, one of several later additions to the site.²⁵²⁰
• The Kaiyō Maru. The shogunate's Dutch-built warship Kaiyō Maru was supporting Hijikata Toshizō's troops as they marched on Esashi after taking Matsumae. It ran aground and sank off Esashi in a snowstorm on the 15th day of the 11th month of Meiji 1 (December 1868). Underwater excavation from 1975 raised 32,905 objects, and a full-size replica was finished in April 1990.²⁶
• The Otobe landing. The new government's counter-attack in spring 1869 landed on the coast at Otobe. The war ended with the surrender of Goryōkaku.¹

From province to subprefecture

• 1869. Shiribeshi Province was created on 20 September 1869.⁸
• 1872. The area came under the Hakodate branch of the Kaitakushi (colonization office), and a village headman's office opened at Esashi.¹
• 1897. The Hiyama Subprefecture (檜山支庁) was set up at Esashi when a reform of the Hokkaido government abolished the old district offices.¹
• Settlers. In October 1891 Niwa Gorō recruited 12 settler households from Senri Village in Inawashiro, Fukushima. They arrived on 21 March 1892 at the land that became Higashi-Setana Village in 1902, now part of Setana. Groups of 30 households from Aizu and 25 from Miyagi followed in 1902.²⁷ Higashi-Setana and Futoro merged in 1955 to form Kitahiyama.¹ Ogino Ginko, Japan's first licensed woman doctor, moved to the settlement of Inmanuel in June 1894 (see Imakane). She opened a clinic in Setana in 1897 and, apart from an absence in 1903–1905, lived there until she returned to Tokyo in December 1908.²⁸
• Railways. The Setana Line was completed in 1932 and the Esashi Line in 1936.¹ Both have since closed.³
• Town status. The bureau's chronology dates town status as follows: Setana 1919, Imakane 1947, Kumaishi 1962, Assabu 1963, Otobe 1965, Okushiri and Taisei 1966, and Kaminokuni 1967.¹ For Setana, Japanese Wikipedia gives 1919 as the year of the first-class village system and 1 January 1921 as the date it became a town.²⁹
• Links to Okushiri. The Esashi–Okushiri ferry began in 1967, the Okushiri–Hakodate air route in 1974, and the Setana–Okushiri ferry in 1977.¹

Earthquake, mergers and reorganization

• 1993. The Hokkaido Nansei-oki Earthquake of 12 July 1993 left 219 people dead or missing in the Hiyama area, most of them on Okushiri.¹² The Okushiri Island Tsunami Museum tells the story of the disaster and the rebuilding.²²
• 2005. Taisei, Setana and Kitahiyama merged to form Setana Town in September 2005.⁴ In the same year Kumaishi merged with Yakumo and moved to Oshima.¹³ This left Hiyama in two parts.
• 2008–2010 reorganization.
  • In June 2008 the Hokkaido Assembly passed an ordinance to regroup the 14 subprefectures into nine regions. Under that plan, Hiyama would have been placed under a new Dōnan General Subprefectural Bureau (道南総合振興局).³⁰
  • An amendment on 31 March 2009 gave the smaller "subprefectural bureaus" the same legal standing as the general bureaus. It also allowed a neighboring general bureau to handle duties best done over a wide area.³⁰
  • On 1 April 2010 Hiyama Subprefecture became the Hiyama Subprefectural Bureau (檜山振興局).¹³ For wide-area duties, the Oshima General Subprefectural Bureau serves all of Oshima and Hiyama.³¹
• 2014–2021.
  • 2014: the JR Esashi Line (Kikonai–Esashi) closed.¹
  • 2016: the Hokkaido Shinkansen opened from Shin-Aomori to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto.¹
  • 2019: the Okushiri–Setana ferry was suspended.¹
  • 2021: flights began between Okushiri and Sapporo's Okadama airport.¹
  • On 6 June 2021 a rock collapse at Tateura in Otobe closed National Route 229. It is still closed (see Getting there & around).³²³³³⁴
• Energy. Assabu and Okushiri were chosen as national Decarbonization Leading Areas.¹ In July 2025 the national government designated the sea off Hiyama as a "promotion zone" for offshore wind power under the Renewable Energy Sea Area Utilization Act.¹²

• Jobs. Hiyama had 16,462 workers at the 2020 Census.¹
  • 19.3% worked in primary industry, against 6.7% for Hokkaido as a whole.
  • 18.2% worked in secondary industry and 61.9% in tertiary industry. The Hokkaido figures are 16.5% and 74.1%.
  • Compared with Hokkaido, farming, forestry and fishing, public service and construction employ larger shares, and manufacturing, retail and services smaller ones.¹
• Industry and commerce. Construction is the largest industry by output, at about ¥32.2 billion in the 2022 regional accounts. Manufacturing makes up only about 3% of regional output.⁹ Businesses are small. In 2021, 53.2% of wholesale and retail businesses had one or two workers, against 33.1% across Hokkaido.⁹
• Farming. Farm output was ¥14.1 billion in 2023: ¥9.4 billion from crops (67%) and ¥4.7 billion from livestock. It had been about ¥20 billion around 1990. That is about 1% of Hokkaido's farm output. In 2025 Hiyama had 769 farm businesses and 18,682 ha of farmland.¹⁴
  • Rice. In 2025, 4,020 ha of rice yielded 21,500 t. In the 2024 crop, Fukkurinko, a variety bred in southern Hokkaido, took 44% of the area, Nanatsuboshi 38% and Yumepirika 10%.¹⁴⁹
  • Potatoes. In the south, Assabu is said to be the birthplace of the May Queen potato, and "Assabu May Queen" became a regional collective trademark in 2022. In the north, Imakane Danshaku potatoes were registered as a Geographical Indication in 2019. Their starch content is about 10% higher than the average for Danshaku potatoes from other areas.⁹
  • Other crops and livestock. Growers produce asparagus, broccoli and cherry tomatoes, and Kaminokuni is one of Hokkaido's leading snow-pea producers. Dairy and beef farms are mainly in the north. There is also a little poultry farming, and pig farming whose pork has become a local brand.⁹
  • Crops for drinks. Assabu grows sweet potatoes for a shōchū distillery, and Otobe and Okushiri grow wine grapes.¹⁴
• Forestry. Larch, todomatsu and sugi are the main species planted, and hiba is still planted as well. Foresters are few and their numbers are falling, so harvesters and drones that carry seedlings are being brought in.⁹
• Fisheries. In 2024 the Hiyama fisheries landed 2,142 t worth ¥2,439 million. These figures include the Kumaishi area of Yakumo.⁹
  • By value: sea urchin ¥560 million, squid ¥500 million, sea cucumber ¥446 million, octopus ¥137 million, flounder ¥100 million and salmon ¥84 million.⁹
  • By town: Setana ¥799 million, Esashi ¥440 million, Okushiri ¥413 million, Otobe ¥289 million, Kaminokuni ¥264 million and Kumaishi ¥235 million.⁹
  • Herring. Kuki, the milky water of spawning herring, was not seen in Hiyama for more than 100 years. It returned in 2017 and 2020 and has been seen every year since 2022. Stocking programs release a million young herring, along with flounder and sea cucumber.⁹
  • Farmed trout salmon. Rainbow trout ("trout salmon") are now farmed in sheltered harbor water in each town and in Kumaishi.⁹
  • Sea cucumber. Dried Hiyama sea cucumber is sold as "Hiyama Haishen" (檜山海参). It was registered as a Geographical Indication on 30 March 2020.⁹³⁵
• Energy. In FY2023 Hiyama had 194,000 kW of renewable power, of which 181,000 kW was wind.¹²
  • The July 2025 offshore wind zone has raised hopes of work for local firms. That same month the bureau set up a GX (green transformation) industry office.¹²
  • The "Hiyama Zero Carbon Network" links 43 public and private organizations.¹²
• Tourism. Hiyama had 1,665,300 tourist visits in FY2025, 11.3% more than in FY2024. That was still the fewest of the 14 subprefectures; Hidaka had 1,758,600 and Rumoi 1,831,200.³⁶
  • Visitor mix. 1,562,800 visits were day trips and 102,500 were overnight stays. 289,300 visitors came from outside Hokkaido. August was the busiest month, with 298,400 visits.³⁶
  • By town: Kaminokuni 442,600; Assabu 440,700; Esashi 284,300; Setana 197,600; Imakane 152,700; Otobe 122,000; Okushiri 25,400.³⁶

Regional brands and specialties

• Geographical Indications. Imakane Danshaku potatoes (No. 86, 9 September 2019) and Hiyama Haishen dried sea cucumber (No. 92, 30 March 2020).³⁵
• Seafood. Sea urchin and abalone (Okushiri, Setana), abalone, flounder and prawns (Kaminokuni), red snow crab and herring soba (Esashi), and dried sea cucumber and akamoku seaweed (Otobe).⁴
• Farm products. Assabu May Queen, Imakane Danshaku, Imakane rice, Imakane soft white leeks, Fukkurinko rice, asparagus, snow peas and Kurosengoku soybeans.⁴⁹
• Meat. Kaminokuni Pork and Fruit Pork, Imakane black wagyu, Okushiri wagyu and Setana's Wakamatsu Porkman pork.⁴
• Sweets and snacks. Gokatteya yōkan and Oiwake kōren (Esashi), yuri monaka and lily-bulb pie (Otobe), Setana's "Oyako-kuma yōkan" and "Iwa-shū" cream puffs, and Assabu's black-bean tea and "Assabu no Mame" beans.⁴
• Drinks. Kitazato shōchū (Assabu), Okushiri wine, Kaminokuni wine and Otobe wine, OTOBBEAN craft beer (Otobe), and local sake such as "Esashi Oiwake," "Okushiri," "Imakane," "Ginko Monogatari" and "Yoshiko" (Setana).⁴

Heritage listings

• Japan Heritage. Esashi's story, "Esashi in May outshines even Edo — a town where the prosperity of herring lives on," was the first of Hokkaido's six Japan Heritage stories.¹²³
• Hokkaido Heritage. Five of the 74 Hokkaido Heritage items are in Hiyama:¹
  • The Ubagami Daijingū Togyo-sai in Esashi. It began about 380 years ago, in the early Edo period, and 13 floats escort the shrine's portable shrine.
  • Esashi Oiwake, a folk song said to have been brought by Kitamae-bune sailors. It grew from the packhorse songs of Shinshū.
  • The medieval tate of Kaminokuni, centered on Katsuyama-date.
  • Goryōkaku and the remains of the Hakodate War. These include the waters off Kamome-jima where the Kaiyō Maru sank and the Otobe coast where the new government's army landed.
  • The Edo-period gold workings at Pirika in Imakane.
• National cultural properties. There are 11 national designations (as of March 2025):²⁰
  • Natural Monuments: the native stand of hinoki-asunaro and aotodomatsu in Esashi (1922), and the northern-limit zone of Japanese white pine on the Uzura River in Assabu (1928).
  • Important Cultural Properties:
    • the Former Nakamura Residence, Esashi (1971);
    • finds from the Pirika 1 site, Imakane (1991);
    • the Old Sasanami Residence, Kaminokuni (1992);
    • the main hall of Jōkoku-ji, Kaminokuni (1993);
    • finds from Katsuyama-date, Kaminokuni (2008).
  • Historic Sites: the Pirika site (1994), the Matsumae clan castle sites including Tate Castle in Assabu (first designated 1935; the bureau lists the 2002 addition), and the Kaminokuni Tate Sites (first designated 1977; extended in 1987 and 2006).²⁵³⁷
  • Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property: Matsumae Kagura (2018), listed for Setana and Imakane.
• Folk performing arts. The bureau lists many local folk arts:²⁰
  • In Esashi: Esashi Oiwake and its dance, the herring work songs Esashi Okiage Ondo, and the Esashi Mochitsuki-bayashi.
  • Deer dances (shishimai) in Esashi, Kaminokuni, Assabu and Otobe.
  • Kudō Kagura in Setana.
  • Taiko drumming groups in Kaminokuni, Okushiri, Imakane and Setana.

Festival calendar (selected)

Dates are the usual pattern given by the bureau; check each year.⁴

The Ubagami Daijingū Togyo-sai is said to be Hokkaido's oldest festival, and Esashi Oiwake is called the "king of Japanese folk songs."⁹

Ainu heritage

Hiyama's written history is mostly the story of Wajin settlement, but Ainu history runs through it.

• Conflict and coexistence. Koshamain's War of 1456–57 set the Ainu against the Wajin of the southern forts. It was put down by Takeda Nobuhiro, then a guest commander at Hanazawa-date in Kaminokuni.¹ At Katsuyama-date, Ainu bone and antler tools and Ainu graves beside Wajin graves point to the two peoples living side by side.¹
• Hashitain of Setanai. In the mid-16th century Hashitain was the Ainu chief of Setanai, today's Setana. In an agreement with the Kakizaki clan he took the title "Nishi-Ezo no kami" (西夷尹). The agreement set out trade and a share of tolls, and divided Wajin land in the south from Ainu land in the north. Hashitain later moved to Kaminokuni. Sources date the agreement anywhere from the 1530s to 1551.³⁸
• Henauke's War, 1643. Henauke, an Ainu chief from Shimakomaki (today's Shimamaki), fought Matsumae forces at Setanai. The rising was linked partly to gold mining and to the damage from a volcanic eruption in 1640. It appears to have ended in a peace later that year.³⁹
• Place names. The bureau's town profiles trace several names to Ainu:⁴
  • Esashi, from eshashi ("a jutting cape") or esashi ("kelp");
  • Otobe, from o-to-un-pe ("the thing with a marsh at the river mouth");
  • Okushiri, from iku-shiri ("the island over there");
  • Assabu, from at-sam ("where elm bark is dried") or hacham-pet ("sakuradori river," after a bird).
  • Imakane, by contrast, is named after two settlers, Imamura and Kanamori. Setana's present name was chosen by public call at the 2005 merger.⁴
• Archaeology. On Okushiri, the Tsunami Museum shows finds through the Okhotsk and Satsumon periods. These are the cultures that came before the Ainu period.²²
• Today. The municipality files in this library found no Ainu cultural facility, museum or active local Ainu association in any of the seven towns. For a living Ainu cultural center, see Upopoy in Shiraoi.

• What draws visitors. The bureau lists these main attractions:⁹
  • history and culture: the Ubagami festival, Esashi Oiwake and the old streets of Esashi;
  • sea cliffs and rocks: Shirafura in Otobe, which it calls the "Seven Sisters of southern Hokkaido" after the white cliffs of southern England, and Oyako-kuma-iwa in Setana;
  • the roadside stations of Assabu and Kaminokuni Monju, popular for their farm stands and souvenirs;
  • the Pirika Ski Area in Imakane, which claims the best snow in southern Hokkaido;
  • hot springs, found in all seven towns;
  • Okushiri, with its seafood, marine activities and Japan's first island winery.
• Seasons. Summer is the peak, with twice-daily Okushiri ferries in July and August and most of the festivals.⁴⁰⁴ August alone accounted for 298,400 visits in FY2025.³⁶ In winter the coast is windy and the inland valleys are snowy.¹⁴¹⁹
• Check before you go (September 2026).
  • The Kaiyō Maru Memorial in Esashi is closed until about May 2027.²⁶
  • The Okushiri Island Tsunami Museum is open only until 31 October in 2026.²²
  • The Pirika Paleolithic Culture Museum closes from 1 December to 31 March.²¹
  • Michi-no-Eki Assabu is closed from 28 September to 7 October 2026 while it moves to a new building.¹⁰
  • Route 229 is closed at Tateura in Otobe.³³

Suggested routes

1. Medieval forts and herring towns (1–2 days from Hakodate or Kikonai).
   • From Kikonai Station on the Shinkansen in Kikonai, follow the Esashi–Kikonai road (also served by bus) to Kaminokuni.¹²
   • In Kaminokuni, see the Katsuyama-date ruins and Jōkoku-ji.⁴ Have lunch in the sea-view restaurant at Michi-no-Eki Kaminokuni Monju (11:00–15:00).⁴¹
   • In Esashi, walk the old Inishie Kaidō street and the Former Nakamura Residence, and visit Kamome-jima.⁴²⁰ End the day at Michi-no-Eki Esashi, which looks out over the Sea of Japan sunset.⁴² Plan around the Ubagami festival (9–11 August) or the Oiwake contest in September.⁴
   • Return over Route 227 through Assabu, stopping at Michi-no-Eki Assabu (with a side trip to the Tate Castle ruins), to Hakodate.⁴³⁴¹²
2. Okushiri Island (1–2 nights).
   • Take the ferry from Esashi. On most days it leaves at 13:00; in peak periods there are sailings at 9:40 and 17:40. The crossing takes about 2 hours 10 minutes, or 2 hours 20 minutes in winter.⁴⁰ Or fly from Hakodate or Sapporo-Okadama.⁴⁴
   • On the island, see Nabetsuru Rock, the Tsunami Museum at Aonae, the sunset from Kamuiwaki Onsen and the Mt. Tamashima lookout. Eat sea urchin and abalone and try Okushiri wine.⁴²²
   • Details are in the Okushiri entry.
3. The northern coast and the Toshibetsu valley (2 days, from Esashi to Oshamambe).
   • Drive north on Route 229 to Otobe for the Shirafura cliffs.⁴
   • Then take the inland detour around the Route 229 closure at Tateura to Michi-no-Eki Route 229 Gennadai and the Gennadai sea pool, which is open in summer.⁴⁵⁴⁶
   • Continue through Kumaishi, in Yakumo, into Setana. Watch the sunset at Michi-no-Eki Tekkui Land Taisei.⁴⁷ See the sea stacks Oyako-kuma-iwa and Sanbonsugi-iwa, and climb to Ōta Shrine if you are fit.⁹⁴
   • Turn inland along the Shiribeshi-Toshibetsu River to Imakane. Visit the Pirika Paleolithic Culture Museum (free; closed Mondays) and soak at Kur Plaza Pirika.²¹⁴ Then go on to Oshamambe. The Hakodate Bus Setana Line follows the same corridor.¹²⁴⁸

Hiyama has five Michi-no-Eki, all registered between 1993 and 1996. Okushiri and Imakane have none. The official list numbers 131 registrations in Hokkaido; three have since been withdrawn, which leaves 128 stations.⁴⁹ Hours are as of September 2026; check before visiting.

• No railway. The JR Esashi Line closed in May 2014, and Hiyama has had no railway since. Public transport on land is by route buses, reservation (demand) buses and taxis.¹²³
  • The Hokkaido Shinkansen extension to Sapporo will pass under Assabu, but the whole section is inside the Oshima Tunnel, with no station.³
• Buses. The bureau lists these main routes:¹²
  • Hakodate–Esashi Line: Esashi–Assabu–Hakodate.
  • Esashi–Kikonai Line: Esashi–Kaminokuni–Kikonai.
  • Setana Line: Setana–Imakane–Oshamambe (Hakodate Bus).⁴⁸
  • Setana–Yakumo Line: Setana–Imakane–Yakumo (Hakodate Bus).⁴⁸
  • Hiyama Coast Line: Esashi–Otobe–Kumaishi.
  • Reservation buses, such as the one between Setana's Taisei ward and Kumaishi.
  • On 1 October 2025 Hakodate Bus withdrew its direct "Kaisoku Setana" bus to Hakodate. It was replaced by three round trips a day on the new Setana–Yakumo Line; for Hakodate, change at Yakumo. The Setana Line was cut from seven to six round trips a day.⁴⁸
• Roads. National Route 227 leads to Hakodate on the Pacific side, and National Route 229 runs north–south through the region. Hiyama has five national routes, with 201.6 km of road in total. Early completion of the Hakodate–Esashi Expressway is sought to cut travel times to the cities.¹²
• Route 229 closure in Otobe. Since a rock collapse on 6 June 2021, 1.8 km of Route 229 has been closed. The closed stretch runs between Tateura (KP 279.3) and Toriyama (KP 277.5), at Tate-no-misaki.³²³³⁵¹
  • Detour. An inland detour of 17.4 km runs through the hills, and 0.8 km of it is narrow. Its roads were renumbered as Route 229 in August 2021 and April 2022.⁵¹⁴⁵
  • Shops. Shops, fuel and restaurants in Otobe can still be reached as usual.⁴⁵
  • The bypass. A new route is being built (names are provisional):³⁴
    • the Toriyama Tunnel (763 m), whose excavation is finished; its breakthrough ceremony was held on 5 June 2026;
    • the Tateura Bridge (18 m), with work on its substructure starting in FY2026;
    • the Tateura Tunnel (781 m), dug since early June 2026.
  • The project page gives no reopening date.³³³⁴
• Ferry to Okushiri. Okushiri Island Ferry sails between Esashi and Okushiri.⁴⁰¹²
  • The crossing takes about 2 hours 10 minutes, or 2 hours 20 minutes from December to March.⁴⁰
  • For most of the year there is one round trip a day: a morning sailing from Okushiri and a 13:00 sailing from Esashi. There are two a day at Golden Week, in July and August, and on some September weekends and holidays (2026 timetable). Up to two extra sailings a day may be added when needed.⁴⁰
  • From 1 October 2026 to 28 February 2027, ferries in Esashi use the New North Pier during quay works. A free shuttle bus is to run to it from the ferry terminal; its timetable had not been announced as of 11 September 2026.⁵²
  • In 2025 the route carried 45,540 passengers and 14,047 vehicles.¹² The Setana–Okushiri route has been suspended since FY2019.¹²
• Air. Okushiri Airport has one round trip a day with JAL (June–October 2026 schedule).⁴⁴
  • Hakodate: 30 minutes, on Monday–Thursday and Saturday.
  • Sapporo-Okadama: 50 minutes, on Friday and Sunday.
  • In FY2024 the Hakodate route carried 10,246 passengers and the Okadama route 4,112.¹²
• Getting around. With no railway and public transport limited to buses and taxis,¹² a car is the practical way to tour the region. In winter the coast is windy and the inland valleys get heavy snow.¹⁵¹⁹
• Bears. Brown bear sightings rose sharply in FY2025. Take the usual precautions on trails and forest roads.¹²