Shinhidaka 新ひだか町

The town name is new. Shinhidaka (新ひだか, "New Hidaka") was chosen in 2005 from seven shortlisted candidates. The others were Mikoma (美駒), Makiba (まきば, "pasture"), Amami (天見), Takuhoku (拓北), Yayoi (弥生) and Taihei (大平).³ An earlier plan for a three-town merger with Niikappu, as "Hidaka City" (ひだか市), had been suspended in 2004.³ Both old town names come from Ainu.

Shizunai (静内). The Hokkaido Government's Ainu place-name list rates this name "C": there are several theories and none can be pinned down.²³

• Si-huci-nay (シフチナイ), literally "big–grandmother–river". According to Uehara, the wife of the Ainu ancestor deity once lived in this valley.²³
• Sutu-nay (ストゥナイ), "grapevine valley", according to Nagata. Nagata also gives Hutchinay, "place where the Ainu ancestor lived".²³
• Sut-nay (スッナイ), "river at the foot (of the ridge)", from the station-name guide. A ridge on the right bank of the Moto-Shizunai River runs out to the sea there.²³

The name first belonged to Moto-Shizunai (元静内), about 10 km east of today's town centre. It moved west together with the trading-post office (会所).²³ Japanese Wikipedia sums up the two main readings as "grandmother's stream" and "grapevine stream".⁶ The Shizunai River and its basin were also known as Shibechari or Shibuchari (シベチャリ／シブチャリ). The name lives on in the chashi sites along the river.¹⁶²⁴

Mitsuishi (三石). The same list gives several theories, also rated "C":²⁵

• Mitus or nitus, "birch-bark bucket". Matsuura Takeshirō wrote that the Ainu had always called the place "Nitoshi". He also recorded a story that the name came from three large reefs offshore.²⁵
• Uehara says a rocky hill in the Mitsuishi River looked like a nitus.²⁵
• I-ma-nit-us-i (イマニトゥシ), "place where the (meat-)roasting skewer stands". Nagata records a large rock called Emanit-ushi standing in the river. The legend says a creator deity's whale-roasting skewer flew off and turned into rock. The list's editor thinks a shortened Nitushi became "Mitsuishi".²⁵

The skewer legend is attached to Hōraisan (蓬莱山), a 66 m rock hill in Mitsuishi. Matsuura heard it from local Ainu.²⁶ Japanese Wikipedia adds a further theory, pit-o-us-i, "place with many pebbles".⁷ The district name Honkiri (本桐) comes from pon-kerimap, "the lesser Kerimap River".²⁵

• Jōmon era. Shizunai Nakano-type pottery (静内中野式土器) is the type specimen of an Early Jōmon pottery style; its clay is full of plant fibre or twisted cord.² At Gotenyama (御殿山) in Shizunai-Mena there is a cemetery of about 80 stone-cairn graves from the end of the Late Jōmon to the start of the Final Jōmon, about 3,000 years ago. Shizunai High School students found it in 1952. Lacquered combs, clay figurines and stone rods have come out of the graves.² The town gives the Hokkaido designation date as 24 December 1963, but its own text says 1964.²

• Ainu chashi, 16th–18th centuries. The Ainu built chashi (forts cut off by moats and palisades) along the Shibechari (Shizunai) River in this period.² The Shibechari chashi stands on a bluff 83 m above sea level and 77 m above the river flats. It is said to have once had three moats. Digs in 1963, 1969, 1987 and 2003 turned up iron tools, lacquerware, porcelain, deer bones, a swordfish bill and salmon vertebrae.²⁷

• Shakushain's War, 1669. Two Ainu groups fought over fishing and hunting rights in the Shibechari area. They were the Menashikur, who lived east of Shibechari, and the Shumkur, who lived to the west. Their feud is recorded as far back as 1648.²⁴ Shakushain became chief of the Menashikur after Kamokutain was killed in 1653. He later killed the Shumkur chief Onibishi.²⁴ A false rumour spread that the Matsumae had poisoned an Ainu envoy. In June 1669 Shakushain called Ainu groups across much of Hokkaido to rise against the Matsumae domain. They killed 356 Japanese (wajin): 213 in eastern Ezo and 143 in the west.²⁴ The Matsumae later offered peace. On 16 November 1669 Shakushain was killed at the peace banquet at Pipok, in present-day Niikappu. The Shibechari chashi fell the next day. Afterwards the Matsumae took firm control of trade with the Ainu.²⁴

• Edo period. The Shizunai name moved west from Moto-Shizunai together with the trading-post office (会所).²³ The explorer Matsuura Takeshirō (1818–1888) described and sketched the "chashi-kotsu" at the mouth of the Mitsuishi River. It is now the town-designated Shoppu chashi site.²

• Meiji settlement from Awaji and Awa. In 1870 the Kōgo Incident (庚午事変, also called the Inada Disturbance) broke out in Sumoto on Awaji Island. Afterwards Inada Kunitane, the Sumoto castle warden, and his former retainers were ordered to move to Hokkaido. On 2 May 1871 a party of 546 landed at Harutachi (Moto-Shizunai) and began clearing Shizunai.²⁸ Many of Shizunai's pioneers came from around Waki in Awa (now Mima, Tokushima), home of the main Inada line.²⁸ In 1885 a Nichiren Buddhist group of 53 households (168 people), led by Watanabe Ihei, sailed from Sumoto and settled at Toyohata.²⁸ Shizunai counted 1870 as its founding year and held its centenary in 1970.⁶

• Meiji settlement in Mitsuishi. In the early and middle Meiji years, settlers came to Mitsuishi from four places:²⁸

  • Kuzumaki (Iwate) to Toyooka and Tomisawa
  • Nō (Niigata) to the port districts
  • Ōno (Fukui) to Utafue and Kawakami
  • Nandan on Awaji (Hyōgo) to Honkiri

  The Awaji and Echizen folk dances that settlers brought are still performed.²

• Imperial horse ranch. Kaitakushi chief Kuroda Kiyotaka proposed a large ranch to breed bigger Japanese horses. The Niikappu Imperial Ranch (新冠御料牧場) that followed spread from Shizunai into Niikappu. The 36 m-wide Nijukken Road was built inside it in 1903.¹⁴ Starting in 1916, over three years, Ezo mountain cherries and other trees were brought from the nearby hills and planted along the road for visiting members of the imperial family.¹³ The ranch guest house Ryūunkaku (龍雲閣) hosted the future Emperors Taishō and Shōwa while they were crown princes.¹⁴

• Villages and towns. A Shizunai village office (戸長役場) opened in 1881. Shizunai Village was formed in 1909 and became a town in 1931.⁶ Mitsuishi Village was formed in 1906 from six villages and became a town in 1951. It counted 1875 as its founding year.⁷²⁸

• Floods, dams and horses. Floods hit the Shizunai River in 1955, 1956 and 1966. After them, the prefecture and Hokkaido Electric built Takami Dam, completed in 1983, as part of the Hidaka power-development scheme. No comparable flood has struck the old Shizunai town area since.²⁹ Shizunai became a sister city of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1988, after some 800 residents signed a petition for it.²⁸

• Merger, 2006. Three-town merger talks with Niikappu were suspended in 2004. In the March 2005 referendums, 69.5% in Shizunai and 55.8% in Mitsuishi voted yes to a two-town merger. Shinhidaka was created on 31 March 2006.³

• Railway lost. Storm waves washed out the JR Hidaka Line in January 2015, and no trains ran south of Mukawa after that. The Mukawa–Samani section, which included seven stations in town, was formally closed on 1 April 2021 and replaced by buses.³⁰⁹

• Recent events.

  • In September 2018 the town removed the original 1970 Shakushain statue in Mauta Park as unsafe, over the objections of the group that had erected it. A new statue was unveiled on 23 September 2018.³¹
  • The Hidaka Mountains became part of Hidaka-sanmyaku Erimo Tokachi National Park on 25 June 2024.³²
  • The Ainu Culture Exchange Center opened on 1 May 2025.¹⁷
  • The Hidaka Expressway reached Niikappu IC, just west of town, on 28 February 2026.³³

• Setting. The town runs from the Pacific coast in the southwest up to the crest of the Hidaka Mountains in the northeast. Most people live along the lower rivers and the coast.¹ Apart from the valleys of the 静内川, 有良川, 捫別川, 布辻川, 三石川 and 鳧舞川 rivers, the land is mostly hills. These rivers rise in the Hidaka range and flow south across the town to the Pacific.¹ The main town, Shizunai, spreads around the mouth of the Shizunai River.³
• Mountains and national park. About a third of the town lies in Hidaka-sanmyaku Erimo Tokachi National Park. At 245,668 ha of land, it is Japan's largest national park.³² The highest peak is Kamuiekuuchikaushi (カムイエクウチカウシ山, 1,979 m). Other peaks include Petegari (ペテガリ岳, 1,736 m) and Pyramid Peak (1,853 m).³³²
• Lakes and dams. Every lake in town is a reservoir. They include Takami Lake, the Shizunai, Futagawa, Higashi-no-sawa and Shunbetsu reservoirs, and Mitsuishi Dam.³ Takami Dam (高見ダム) is a 120 m rockfill dam. It is the tallest completed dam in Hokkaido and holds 229 million m³.²⁹
• Climate. Shinhidaka is mild and snow-light for Hokkaido. It is called "the land of cool summers and little snow" (涼夏少雪の郷). Even in February, a day's snowfall rarely tops about 20 cm.³⁴
  • At the Shizunai AMeDAS station (1991–2020 normals), the annual mean temperature is 8.2 °C. January averages −3.4 °C and August 20.7 °C.³⁵
  • Annual precipitation is 1,043.3 mm and total snowfall 188 cm. The normal deepest snow cover is only 21 cm.³⁵
  • Records: 33.9 °C on 12 August 2024 and −19.8 °C on 4 March 1986. The deepest snow was 43 cm, on 6 February 2018.³⁶
  • The Mitsuishi station (三石美野和) is colder in winter, with a record low of −25.9 °C.³

• Thoroughbred breeding. Horse breeding is by far the main farm industry. It makes up about 60% of the town's farm output.¹ Hidaka bred 6,242 of Japan's 7,925 thoroughbred foals in 2024 (78.8%).¹⁰ Shinhidaka accounts for about 30% of Hidaka's output and has Japan's largest annual thoroughbred production.¹

  • The Hokkaido Market (北海道市場) is run jointly by the horse-breeders' cooperatives of Hidaka, Iburi and Tokachi. It holds auctions from May to October and sells more than 2,000 horses a year, the most in Japan. Sales topped ¥10 billion every year from 2017 to 2025.¹⁰
  • Stallion stations in town include the Japan Bloodhorse Breeders' Association's Shizunai Stallion Station (JBBA静内種馬場)³⁷ and Arrow Stud and Rex Stud along the Nijukken Road.³⁸³⁹ In 2026 JBBA leased American Pharoah, the 2015 US Triple Crown winner. He covered 218 mares, and in June 2026 his stay was extended into 2027.¹¹

• Other farming. The town brands three main products:¹

  • Wagyu as "Mitsuishi beef". About 20 farms, mostly JA Mitsuishi members, raise each animal from birth for about 30 months. More than 70% of carcasses grade 4 or higher.²²
  • Mini tomatoes as "Taiyō no Hitomi" (太陽の瞳), among Hokkaido's top producers
  • Delphiniums as "Mitsuishi Hanadayori" (みついし花だより), among Japan's top producers

  Local Nanatsuboshi rice is grown with horse-manure compost and sold under racing names: "Manbaken" (万馬券) and "Tokinominoru" (トキノミノル).¹

• Fisheries. Hidaka kombu is the pride of the local catch. Salmon (including silver autumn salmon, 銀毛) and octopus are also landed. Fishers release flounder, rockfish, sea urchin, sea cucumber and surf clam to rebuild stocks.¹ Across Hidaka, kombu brought in ¥3.12 billion in 2024. That was 31.4% of the region's catch value and 17.9% of Hokkaido's kombu value.⁴⁰

• Forestry and energy. More than 80% of the town is forest, mostly Todo fir and larch. Local mills produce lumber and chips.¹ Hokkaido Electric's Shizunai hydro centre manages the Takami, Shizunai, Futagawa, Higashi-no-sawa and Shunbetsu power stations.³ Takami is a 200 MW pumped-storage plant.²⁹

• Commerce and companies. The town's retail sales are among the larger in Hokkaido. Shoppers come in from neighbouring towns at weekends.¹ The logistics firm Shizunai Logos started here in 1952 as Shizunai Motor Transport and moved its head office to Sapporo in 2002.³ Eclipse Hidaka (エクリプス日高), maker of the Hidaka Tsubu-meshi bentō, is also based here.³⁴¹

• Tourism. Hidaka Subprefecture counted 281,700 visits to Shinhidaka in FY2025, about the same as the year before.⁴² Michi-no-Eki Mitsuishi had 171,000 users and the Kurazo onsen 104,000. The cherry festival drew 75,300, up from 67,800 but well below 130,100 in FY2019.⁴²

• Population. The town's population peaked at 35,754 around 1965. It fell below 30,000 by about 1995 (29,225).⁴³ Deaths have outnumbered births since 2005. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research's 2023 projection gives 14,866 people in 2040, about 31% fewer than today.⁴³

• Revitalisation. A 2008 ordinance set up the town's furusato nōzei programme. Donations pay for Nijukken Road upkeep, the horse industry, tourism, welfare and schooling.⁴⁴

• Awa-odori. The Tokushima dance is the town's summer fixture.⁴⁹ That fits a town whose first settlers came from the Inada family's lands on Awaji and in Awa.²⁸
• Folk dances. Two settler dances are town-designated intangible cultural properties:²
  • Awaji Hōnen Masu-odori (淡路豊年桝踊り), brought by settlers from Awaji to Toyooka and Tomisawa in Mitsuishi and performed since 1885. Its parts include a rain dance and a rice-bale dance.
  • Utafue Echizen-odori (歌笛越前踊り), brought from Ōno in Fukui to Utafue and Kawakami and performed since 1890
• Ainu dance. Ainu traditional dance (アイヌ古式舞踊) is a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. It is kept alive by the Shizunai society (designated 1984) and the Mitsuishi society (1994).²
• Temples. Ryūtokuji (静澄山龍徳寺) and Enshōji (三石山円昌寺) are stops No. 29 and No. 31 on the Hokkaido 33 Kannon pilgrimage.³
• Museums.
  • Shinhidaka Town Museum (新ひだか町博物館, Shizunai Yamate-chō 3-1-1) holds the Jōmon pottery and the Gotenyama finds. Admission is free; open 10:00–18:00, closed Mondays.⁵⁰²
  • The Ainu Culture Exchange Center is described below.

Shinhidaka is one of Hokkaido's most important places for Ainu history.

• Shibechari chashi and Mauta Park (真歌公園). The Shibechari chashi (シベチャリチャシ跡), said to be Shakushain's fort, stands on a bluff above the Shizunai River with views of the town, the Pacific and the Hidaka range. One 50 m moat and an enclosure of about 1,300 m² can still be seen.²⁷ Together with the Hoinashiri, Mena, Ochirishi and Ruiopira chashi, and the Appetsu chashi in Hidaka Town, it was made a National Historic Site on 2 December 1997. The Shibechari and Hoinashiri forts are thought to have been Shakushain's, and the Mena, Ochirishi and Appetsu forts those of Onibishi's side.¹⁶ In FY2021 the town removed later additions from the site to show its original form. Its Ainu policy plans aim to develop the Mauta area as a hub for Ainu culture.⁵¹
• Ainu Culture Exchange Center (新ひだか町アイヌ文化交流センター). It opened on 1 May 2025, paid for with national Ainu-policy grants. It combines the Shakushain Memorial Hall, the Ainu Folk Museum and a multi-purpose hall for ceremonies and hands-on activities. Admission is free.¹⁷ The Folk Museum has an Ezo wolf skull with a hole in the left side of the head. It shows the wolf was used in an Ainu ritual, and it may be the only such specimen in Japan.²
• The Shakushain statues. A statue designed by Takenaka Toshihiro was put up in Mauta Park in 1970, paid for by donations from both Ainu and wajin. The town removed it in 2018 as unsafe. The Shinhidaka Ainu Association's calmer new statue, showing Shakushain in prayer (onkami), was unveiled at the memorial ceremony on 23 September 2018. Supporters had the old statue recast in bronze. Since 2022 it has stood on a hilltop of private land in the Hanazono district across the river, visible only from a distance.³¹
• Living traditions. The Shizunai and Mitsuishi preservation societies keep up the nationally designated Ainu traditional dances.² The town's list of culture groups has a section for traditional-culture circles in Ainu embroidery and folk performing arts.⁵² The Utari cooperative's Ezo deer products carry the Ainu name "Yukkam" (Ainu for "deer meat", unverified).⁴⁷
• Hōraisan. This small rock hill in Mitsuishi is the setting of many Ainu legends. It is a town-designated scenic site.²⁶²

Sister cities

• Lexington, Kentucky, USA. Signed with Shizunai on 21 July 1988. Both are world-famous horse-breeding centres, and 800 residents petitioned for the tie in 1987.²⁸ The town sends friendship delegations to Lexington and short-term language students to the University of Kentucky.⁶⁷
• Sumoto, Hyōgo. Signed with Shizunai on 2 May 1986 and renewed with Shinhidaka on 6 May 2007. The Inada retainers came from Sumoto.²⁸¹
• Mima, Tokushima (formerly Waki). Signed with Shizunai on 9 September 1990, marking 120 years since the Inada settlement, and renewed on 25 November 2011.²⁸
• Minamiawaji, Hyōgo. Former Seidan signed with Shizunai on 9 September 1990.²⁸¹

Friendship towns (友好市町). All were signed with Mitsuishi on 3 June 1983, after the settlers' home towns were invited to Mitsuishi's centenary in 1975:²⁸¹

• Kuzumaki, Iwate
• Itoigawa, Niigata (formerly Nō)
• Ōno, Fukui
• Minamiawaji, Hyōgo (formerly Nandan)

• Shakushain (シャクシャイン, d. 1669), Ainu chief of Shibechari and leader of the 1669 uprising²⁴³
• Kuzuno Tatsujirō (葛野辰次郎), who passed on Ainu culture³
• Koike Sōkō (小池聰行), businessman and founder of Oricon³
• Shimokawa Mikuni (下川みくに), singer and the town's hometown ambassador³
• Shimada Isao (嶋田功) and Tanaka Katsuharu (田中勝春), JRA jockeys who later became trainers³
• Hiura Ichirō (日浦市郎), professional shōgi player³