Ishikari 石狩振興局

Population figures are from the 2020 Census, as given in each municipal entry and in the Hokkaido statistics office's census table, which also lists Sapporo's 10 wards¹.

Ishikari Subprefecture lies in west-central Hokkaido. The Hokkaido Government's overview describes three zones²:

• The northwest coast. Ishikari City is the only municipality with a coastline. It has about 72 km of Sea of Japan shore¹³, rising in the north to the mountains of the Mashike volcanic group. That area is part of Shokanbetsu-Teuri-Yagishiri Quasi-National Park, and the coast road is promoted as the Japan Sea Oronon Line². The Ishikari entry quotes the city's own figure of about 80 km of coastline.
• The southwest mountains. Mt. Eniwa and Lake Shikotsu form part of Shikotsu-Toya National Park². The park was designated on 16 May 1949 and covers 99,473 ha in 6 cities, 7 towns and 1 village, including Sapporo, Chitose and Eniwa¹⁴. Lake Shikotsu, a caldera lake in Chitose, is about 42 km around and about 360 m deep, the second-deepest lake in Japan¹⁵. GSI lists it at 78.48 km², the eighth-largest lake in Japan⁴.
• The central plain. The Ishikari River is one of Japan's three great rivers. It flows through the middle of the region across the broad, fertile Ishikari Plain. The plain is the core of Hokkaido's rice farming and the setting for the Sapporo metropolitan area².

The Ishikari River. It is 268 km long, the third-longest river in Japan, and its basin of 14,330 km² is the second-largest¹⁶. It rises on Mt. Ishikari in Kamikawa and enters Ishikari Bay in Ishikari City. Cut-off channels shortened its meandering course by about 100 km, from about 364 km¹⁶. The great flood of 1898 inundated about 150,000 ha and killed 112 people¹⁶. The river is a Hokkaido Heritage site¹⁷.

Soils and forests. The overview divides the soils into fertile alluvium along the Ishikari, Tarumae volcanic ash in the south and peat at Shinotsu. There are also belts of strongly acidic heavy clay from Tobetsu to Ishikari and from Nopporo to Kitahiroshima². Nopporo Forest Park (野幌森林公園), a prefectural natural park designated on 15 May 1968, covers 2,053 ha across Sapporo, Ebetsu and Kitahiroshima. The prefecture calls it a rare large area of flat-land forest next to a big city¹⁸.

Climate. The region is large enough that the Sea of Japan side and the southern area near the Pacific have different weather. The north gets more snow days in winter, and the south more cloudy and rainy days in summer. More than half of winter days are mafuyubi (真冬日, days that stay below 0 °C), but summer brings days above 30 °C². JMA normals show the contrast between central Sapporo, the snowy plain and the drier south:

• Prehistory.
  • About 4,000 years ago, people in what is now Ishikari City built wooden salmon weirs at the site now called Momijiyama No. 49. They are the oldest salmon-fishing structures known in Japan, and their design is almost identical to the Ainu teshi weir²².
  • Around 1200 BCE, Jōmon people built the Kiusu earthwork burials in Chitose. In July 2021 they were inscribed as part of the "Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan," Hokkaido's first cultural World Heritage Site²³.
  • About 3,000 years ago, graves at the Karinba site in Eniwa were furnished with red-lacquered combs, bracelets and belts. The site became a National Historic Site in 2005, and 397 of its finds became Important Cultural Properties in 2006²⁴.
  • The Ebetsu Kofun Cluster has 21 mounds. It belongs to the same tradition as the clustered tombs of northern Tohoku and is the only surviving site that marks their northern limit. It became a National Historic Site on 11 September 1998²⁵.
• Ainu country and the Ishikari trade. The name Ishikari comes from the Ainu name of the river (イシカリベツ), read as "the river that winds and meanders" or "the river the gods made beautiful." The region's recorded history begins more than 300 years ago, when the Matsumae domain set up salmon trading at what is now Ishikari City. Fishing remained its main industry until the Kaitakushi made Sapporo its headquarters in 1872²⁶. In 1695 a Matsumae retainer arrived at Ishikari as salmon official, and in 1807 the explorer Kondō Jūzō surveyed the plain and reported to the shogunate that Ishikari was promising land¹².
• Meiji settlement (1869–1890s).
  • 1869: the Kaitakushi (開拓使, Hokkaido Development Commission) was created and Ezo was renamed Hokkaido¹². The nine districts of Ishikari Province were defined the same year²⁷.
  • 1871: Date Kunnao of Iwadeyama settled the Tōbetsu area with his retainers¹².
  • 1872: the Kaitakushi's Sapporo office became its main headquarters¹².
  • 1873: Nakayama Kyūzō succeeded in growing rice in the cold north, at Shimamatsu in today's Kitahiroshima¹²²⁸.
  • 1875: the first tondenhei (屯田兵, farmer-soldiers), 198 households, settled at Kotoni¹².
  • 1876: the Sapporo Agricultural College opened¹², and the Kaitakushi Brewery opened on 23 September on the site of today's Sapporo Factory²⁹. That year the Kaitakushi also moved Ainu from Sakhalin, who had come to Hokkaido under the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg, to Tsuishikari in present-day Ebetsu³⁰.
  • 1888: a salmon hatchery opened at Chitose, starting salmon stocking¹².
• From prefecture to subprefecture. The Kaitakushi was abolished in 1882 in favor of three prefectures, including Sapporo Prefecture, and those were replaced by the Hokkaido Government Office (北海道庁) in 1886. In 1897 the district offices were replaced by subprefectures¹², creating Sapporo Subprefecture (札幌支庁). It was renamed Ishikari Subprefecture (石狩支庁) on 17 August 1922⁶, the year Sapporo became a city¹².
• Postwar growth.
  • 1949: Shikotsu-Toya National Park was designated. 1950: the first Sapporo Snow Festival was held¹².
  • 1955–1970: the Shinotsu peatland development project turned bog into farmland¹².
  • 1955–1967: Sapporo absorbed Sapporo Village, Shinoro Village and Kotoni Town (1955), Toyohira Town (1961) and Teine Town (1967)¹².
  • 1972: Sapporo hosted the Winter Olympics and became a designated city. 1973: Ishikari Bay New Port was designated an important port, and construction began¹².
  • 1975: part of Ishikari Town (Tarukawa) was transferred to Otaru, in Shiribeshi⁶.
  • 1988: New Chitose Airport opened¹².
  • 1996: Kitahiroshima and Ishikari became cities. 2005: Ishikari merged with Atsuta and Hamamasu villages, leaving today's 6 cities, 1 town and 1 village¹².
• The 2010 reorganization. In June 2008 the Hokkaido Assembly passed an ordinance to regroup the 14 subprefectures into 9 general subprefectural bureaus (総合振興局), with 5 subprefectural bureaus (振興局) as their branch offices. Local opposition and a delay in revising the election law stopped it from taking effect in 2009. An amendment on 31 March 2009 kept both types as subprefectures of equal standing, though a general bureau can handle wide-area administration for a neighboring bureau³¹. On 1 April 2010 Ishikari Subprefecture became Ishikari Subprefectural Bureau (石狩振興局)⁶¹². The only municipalities that changed subprefecture in that reform were Horonobe, from Rumoi to Soya, and Horokanai, from Sorachi to Kamikawa, and Abashiri was renamed Okhotsk³¹.
• Recent years.
  • March 2023: ES CON FIELD HOKKAIDO and F Village opened in Kitahiroshima¹⁰.
  • January 2024: a large bottom-fixed offshore wind farm began commercial operation in the harbor area of Ishikari Bay New Port³².
  • April 2025: Rapidus started its pilot line in Chitose³².
  • 2025 Census: the preliminary count fell by 0.6%. Only Eniwa, which had Hokkaido's largest gain (+587), and Chitose (+227) grew¹.

• A concentration of Hokkaido's activity. Sapporo alone had 39.4% of Hokkaido's population in the preliminary 2025 Census¹. In the 2021 Economic Census the region had 37.3% of Hokkaido's wholesale and retail businesses, 47.1% of their employees and 60.0% of their annual sales³³. Its 25 universities have 59,098 students, about 83% of Hokkaido's university students, and about 87% of its international students study here³⁴.
• Agriculture. Farming grew up around rice. After rice production cuts began in 1970, farms added wheat, beans, vegetables, flowers and livestock³⁵.
  • Output was ¥52.8 billion in 2023, 4.1% of Hokkaido's total. The region is a major Hokkaido producer of rice, flowers, broccoli and eggs³⁵.
  • Harvests (2024 crop): rice 37,800 t (6.7% of Hokkaido), wheat 46,600 t (6.5%) and soybeans 9,070 t (6.9%). There were 36,253 pigs (8.1%) in February 2024³⁵.
  • Flower shipments (2024 crop): 80.9% of Hokkaido's bedding-plant seedlings, 65.9% of its potted plants and 14.1% of its cut flowers³⁵.
  • There were 1,996 commercial farm households in 2020, about 6% of Hokkaido's, and there are more than 200 farm stands³⁵.
• Fisheries. The only fishing coast is Ishikari City's. In 2024 it landed 4,888 t (0.45% of Hokkaido) worth ¥2,566 million (0.89%). Salmon, herring, scallops and sea cucumber make up about 80% of the value. Herring, restocked under a Hokkaido project since FY1996, has grown to a stock of more than 2,000 t, and spawning herring that turn the sea white (群来, kuki) are seen again most years¹³. (The Ishikari entry gives the city's own figure of 5,408 t for the local cooperative's 2024 landings.) Lake Shikotsu's kokanee, called chip locally, has been a registered regional collective trademark, "Shikotsuko Chip," since June 2024¹³.
• Manufacturing and logistics. The 2024 Economic Structure Survey counted 1,833 manufacturing establishments (28.5% of Hokkaido) with 53,192 employees (32.2%). Shipments for 2023 were ¥1.47 trillion, 22.1% of Hokkaido's and up 6.1% on the previous year³⁶. Ishikari City's two industrial parks, led by Ishikari Bay New Port, cover 3,021.6 ha, far more than any other municipality's (2022 register)³⁶. About 650 companies operate in the port area, employing about 20,000 people, and the port handled about 5.42 million t of cargo in 2024 (preliminary)³⁷.
• Semiconductors, data and energy. Rapidus began its pilot line for next-generation chips in Chitose in April 2025, produced prototypes that July, and aims to start mass production in 2027. Foreign chipmakers have started opening Hokkaido offices³². Ishikari City was named a national Decarbonization Leading Area in April 2022 and is building an "RE zone" at the port, supplied entirely with renewable power, to attract data centers. The sea off Ishikari City has been listed as a "promising area" for offshore wind under the national marine renewable-energy law³².
• Regional specialties. The subprefecture's municipal profiles list⁷⁸⁹¹⁰:
  • Sapporo: soup curry, ramen, beer, jingisukan and sweets.
  • Ebetsu: Haruyutaka wheat, handmade ham and sausage, dairy products, Ezo Tajima beef, the local sake Mizuho no Shizuku, pottery and bricks.
  • Chitose: haskap products and Shikotsuko Chip.
  • Eniwa: Ebisu pumpkin products, cooking tomatoes and flower seedlings.
  • Kitahiroshima: Maruhiro daikon, handmade ham and sausage, strawberries, honey, and sweets and sake made from Akage rice.
  • Ishikari: Ishikari-nabe, salmon-soy-sauce ramen, salmon, herring, mantis shrimp, Mōraiton pork, Hamamasu wagyu and cherries.
  • Tobetsu: rice, wheat, flax, cut flowers, pork and chocolate.
  • Shinshinotsu: rice, doburoku, the sake Ōbora, rice cider and kimchi.
• Signature products with a story.
  • Ishikari-nabe (石狩鍋): a salmon and vegetable hotpot seasoned with miso and finished with sanshō pepper. Ishikari City presents itself as its birthplace. The Agency for Cultural Affairs recognized it as a "100-Year Food" in FY2023, and 15 September is Ishikari-nabe Day³⁸.
  • Beer: Sapporo's Kaitakushi Brewery opened in 1876²⁹. Sapporo Classic, a beer sold only in Hokkaido, is brewed only at Sapporo Breweries' Hokkaido Brewery in Eniwa, with water that originates on Mt. Eniwa³⁹.
  • ROYCE' chocolate: the chocolate maker's factory attraction, ROYCE' Cacao & Chocolate Town, is at Royce Town 1-1, Tobetsu, and admission is by advance booking⁴⁰.

Festival calendar. The subprefecture's FY2026 events list gives a year-round program:

The 2026 Sapporo Snow Festival drew 2,539,000 visitors, the most since the pandemic⁴⁴. The next is planned for 4–11 February 2027⁴⁵. Chitose marks 100 years since its airport opened with a citizens' parade in late September 2026⁴³.

Heritage designations.

• National Important Cultural Properties in Sapporo include the Clock Tower (the former Sapporo Agricultural College drill hall, 1878), the Red Brick former Hokkaido Government Office (1888) and Hōheikan (豊平館, 1880)⁴⁶.
• Japan Heritage. Ishikari City became part of the "Kitamaebune ports of call" Japan Heritage story in May 2018. Ebetsu's brick sites joined the "Tan-Tetsu-Kō" (炭鉄港) coal, steel and port story in June 2024⁴⁷.
• Hokkaido Heritage. Ishikari City lists the Ishikari River, salmon culture, and the Mashike and Gokibiru mountain roads¹⁷. "Ebetsu bricks" were selected on 22 October 2004⁴⁸.

Ainu heritage.

• Place names. About 80% of Hokkaido's municipality names come from Ainu⁴⁹. The subprefecture's own profiles trace Sapporo, Ebetsu, Eniwa, Ishikari and Tobetsu to Ainu words⁷⁸⁹¹¹. Chitose's older Ainu name, Shikot ("big hollow" or "valley"), survives in Lake Shikotsu; the area was renamed Chitose in 1805⁸. Shinshinotsu took its name from the village of Shinotsu when it split off in 1896¹¹. Kitahiroshima is the only name taken from its settlers' home, Hiroshima Prefecture⁹.
• Salmon and ceremony. Chitose's Ainu association and preservation society hold Ashiri Chep Nomi (アシリチェプノミ), a ceremony to welcome the new salmon. Participants catch only what they need from a dugout canoe with a hooked spear (marek) and offer the fish to the fire deity⁵⁰. Sapporo also holds an Ashiri Chep Nomi in early September⁴³.
• Sakhalin Ainu at Tsuishikari. After the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg, the Kaitakushi moved Ainu from Sakhalin to Tsuishikari in 1876, on land now in the Ishikari riverbed in Ebetsu. A school for their children, later named Tsuishikari School, opened in 1878³⁰. See Ebetsu.
• Sacred landscapes and hunting sites.
  • Kogane-yama (739.1 m) in Ishikari City, whose Ainu name is Pinne-tai-or-shipe, is part of Pirikanoka (ピリカノカ), a national Place of Scenic Beauty designated on 23 July 2009. The designation covers landscapes tied to Ainu oral tradition and prayer⁵¹.
  • In Eniwa's western mountains, three shiratchise rock shelters survive. Ainu hunters used them as bases for spring bear hunts and held bear-sending rites there. Since 2012 the Eniwa Ainu Association has held a prayer ceremony (Shiratchise Kamuynomi) at one of them⁵².
• Where to learn.
  • Sapporo Pirka Kotan (Sapporo Ainu Culture Promotion Center), Koganeyu, Minami Ward, displays about 300 items that visitors may handle. It passed 1 million cumulative visitors on 14 November 2025⁵³.
  • Hokkaido Ainu Center, 7th floor of the Kaderu 2·7 building in central Sapporo, is free and open 9:00–17:00, closed Sundays, holidays and over the New Year⁵⁴.
  • Hokkaido Museum (Atsubetsu Ward, Sapporo) opened in 2015 by merging the Historical Museum of Hokkaido with the prefectural Ainu Culture Research Center⁵⁵.
  • The national center, Upopoy (National Ainu Museum and Park), is outside the subprefecture in Shiraoi⁵⁶.

The subprefecture counted 30.31 million tourist visits in FY2024, up 5.9% and about 20% of Hokkaido's total. Foreign overnight guests rose 36.5% and were about 40% of Hokkaido's. Sapporo accounted for 15.26 million visits and Kitahiroshima, home of F Village, for 5.37 million⁵⁷.

• City sights. In Sapporo: the Clock Tower, the Red Brick office, the TV Tower, Mt. Moiwa, Moerenuma Park, Hitsujigaoka Observation Hill and Jozankei Onsen⁷. Also the Historical Village of Hokkaido, an open-air museum inside Nopporo Forest Park¹⁸.
• Lakes, gorges and forest. Lake Shikotsu in Chitose is about 25 km from Tomakomai and 50 km from Sapporo¹⁵. There are waterfalls and Lake Eniwa in Eniwa⁸, Nopporo Forest Park across Sapporo, Ebetsu and Kitahiroshima¹⁸, and the Dōmin no Mori forest park in Tobetsu¹¹.
• Prehistory and pioneer heritage. The Kiusu earthwork burials in Chitose, where a guidance center opened on 25 April 2025²³. The Karinba finds in Eniwa²⁴, the Ebetsu Kofun Cluster²⁵, and the former Shimamatsu post station in Kitahiroshima⁹.
• The coast. In Ishikari: Hamanasu-no-Oka and the Ishikari Lighthouse, the Makunbetsu wetland's skunk cabbage, the Lovers' Sanctuary lookout at Atsuta, and morning markets at the Ishikari, Atsuta and Hamamasu fishing ports⁹.
• Food and factories. Sapporo Classic at the Eniwa brewery³⁹, ROYCE' Cacao & Chocolate Town in Tobetsu (advance booking)⁴⁰, and Ishikari-nabe at the river mouth³⁸.
• Sport. Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters baseball at ES CON FIELD HOKKAIDO, the centerpiece of the roughly 32 ha F Village¹⁰⁹.

Suggested routes

1. Airport gateway: lakes, gardens and baseball (1–2 days, by car). From New Chitose Airport, drive about 10 minutes to Salmon Park Chitose, beside the salmon aquarium and the Indian water wheel (in place late August to early December)⁵⁸. Continue to Lake Shikotsu for the caldera views and lakeside onsen¹⁵. Come back through Eniwa, where Hana Road Eniwa and the Hanafuru gardens sit on Route 36⁵⁹. End at F Village in Kitahiroshima before reaching Sapporo¹⁰. This route links Chitose, Eniwa, Kitahiroshima and Sapporo.
2. The Ishikari River to the Sea of Japan (1 day). Leave Sapporo on Route 337 for Nordic Wind (Hokuō no Kaze) Michi-no-Eki Tōbetsu, the roadside station closest to central Sapporo⁶⁰. Nearby is ROYCE' Cacao & Chocolate Town in Tobetsu⁴⁰. Continue to the Ishikari River mouth for Hamanasu-no-Oka and the Ishikari Lighthouse⁹, and for Ishikari-nabe at Kindaitei (金大亭), the restaurant known as its creator⁴⁷³⁸. Then follow Route 231 north to Michi-no-Eki Airoad Atsuta and its sea-view observation deck⁶¹. Atsuta is about 70 minutes and Hamamasu about 90 minutes by car from the Sapporo-Kita interchange⁶². Drivers can continue north along the coast to Mashike in Rumoi.
3. Heart of the plain: forest, bricks and rice (1 day). Start at Nopporo Forest Park, with the Historical Village of Hokkaido and the Hokkaido Museum¹⁸⁵⁵. Cross into Ebetsu for its brick heritage⁴⁸. Head north to Shinshinotsu for Lake Shinotsu and the Tappu Observatory¹¹, but note that its Michi-no-Eki and onsen are closed from 1 October 2026 until a planned reopening on 1 January 2028⁶³. Return via Sweden Hills in Tobetsu¹¹.

The official Hokkaido list has 131 stations, 5 of them in this subprefecture. Sapporo, Ebetsu and Kitahiroshima have none⁶⁴. Stations are listed in order of registration.

• By air.
  • New Chitose Airport (Chitose) opened in July 1988 and has two 3,000 m runways³⁷. It handled a record 24,825,918 passengers in FY2024, 20,950,559 of them on domestic flights⁶⁶.
  • Sapporo Okadama Airport (Higashi Ward, Sapporo) opened in November 1961 and has a single 1,500 m runway³⁷.
  • Together the two airports link 27 domestic cities and, as of 1 January 2026, 14 international destinations from Seoul to Sydney. The subprefecture's overview puts their combined FY2024 use at about 21.53 million³⁷. That is lower than New Chitose's own total and appears to count domestic passengers only (unverified).
• Airport rail link. JR's Rapid Airport trains reach Sapporo in 37 minutes at fastest, and the Special Rapid in 33 minutes. The fare is ¥1,230, with 163 trains a day⁶⁷.
• Rail. Four JR lines serve the region: the Hakodate Main Line, the Chitose Line, the Sekishō Line and the Sasshō Line (Gakuen Toshi Line)³⁷. The Sasshō Line now runs 28.9 km from Sōen to Hokkaido-Iryōdaigaku in Tobetsu; the section beyond it to Shin-Totsukawa closed on 7 May 2020⁶⁸. A new Chitose Line station is being built beside the ballpark; its name, F Village Station (Fビレッジ駅), was announced on 4 September 2026⁶⁹, and it is due to open in 2028⁷⁰. As reported in March 2025, the Hokkaido Shinkansen extension to Sapporo is expected around the end of FY2038, delayed from FY2030 by difficult tunnel work⁷¹.
• Sapporo's city transit. Three subway lines, Namboku (opened December 1971), Tōzai and Tōhō, run 48.0 km in total, and one streetcar loop runs 8.9 km³⁷.
• Roads.
  • The region has 10,273.3 km of roads, 11.4% of Hokkaido's, and 55.3% of that length is in Sapporo³⁷.
  • The first sections of the Hokkaido Expressway (Chitose–Kitahiroshima) and the Sasson Expressway (Sapporo–Otaru) opened in 1971. The Dōtō Expressway from Chitose-Eniwa JCT to Yūbari opened in 1999¹².
  • National Route 231 along the coast from Sapporo through Hamamasu to Rumoi was fully opened in 1981¹².
• Buses. The coastal limited-express Mashike bus leaves Sapporo Station for Atsuta (about 65 minutes) and Hamamasu (about 90 minutes)⁶². Lake Shikotsu, the Eniwa gorge, Shinshinotsu and the northern coast are easiest to reach by car; the municipal entries give bus options.
• Sea. Ishikari Bay New Port straddles Ishikari and Otaru, about 15 km from central Sapporo, and is the region's only important port (重要港湾). It has container services to South Korea (weekly) and to China and South Korea (twice weekly), and Hokkaido's only LNG import terminal for ocean-going ships³⁷.
• Seasonal cautions.
  • Winter. Snowfall averages 479 cm a year in central Sapporo and 820 cm on the Shinshinotsu plain¹⁹²⁰. Use winter tires and allow extra time on open farmland roads.
  • Brown bears. Conflicts between people and bears are rising. A bear injured a person in Sapporo in September 2025, and Sapporo carried out Hokkaido's first "emergency shooting" (緊急銃猟)⁷². Check municipal bear-sighting pages before hiking around Lake Shikotsu, the Eniwa gorge, Hamamasu or the forests of southern Sapporo.
  • Closures. Michi-no-Eki Shinshinotsu and Tappu-no-Yu are closed until a planned reopening on 1 January 2028⁶³. The Michi-no-Eki site says Airoad Atsuta's tenants close from early November to late March⁶¹.