Takasu 鷹栖町

• "Takasu" is a translation, not a sound-spelling, of the Ainu name Chikap-un-i (チカップニ). The town explains that kites (トンビ), Eurasian sparrowhawks and northern goshawks once circled over the area. People who saw them called it "the place where big birds (hawks) live (nest)." The Japanese rendering became 鷹 (hawk) + 栖 (nest, dwelling).¹
• The glosses differ slightly. Britannica Japan gives "the place with the nests of large birds."¹⁰ Japanese Wikipedia, in its article on the former Higashitakasu, gives the plain "place where birds are" (chikap-un-i). It adds that the name is said to have been chosen by Iwamura Michitoshi (岩村通俊), who became the first governor of Hokkaido.⁹
• The same Ainu name, spelled out by sound, gave Chikabumi (近文) in Asahikawa (chikapu-un-ni, "place where birds are").¹⁹ Before 1973, three old place names (字) in the town were Chikabumi (近文), Chikabumi Genya (近文原野) and Osarappe (オサラッペ). That year they were abolished, and rural addresses became grid numbers of the form "○-sen ○-gō" (○線○号).⁴
• The Osarappe River (オサラッペ川) is said to come from Ainu o-sar-pet ("river-mouth, reed-marsh, river") or o-sara-pet ("river whose mouth is open").²⁰
• Takasu should not be confused with Takasu in Gifu Prefecture or Takasu Station in Hiroshima.²¹

• Before settlement: The town museum shows stone tools used about 10,000 years ago.²² It also shows obsidian arrowheads and pottery replicas from sites in Takasu.²³ Near the Asahikawa boundary, Arashiyama keeps a chashi-kotsu (チャシコツ), an Ainu fort or lookout site.²⁴
• Edo period: The sources consulted record no trading post or other Edo-period Japanese presence in the present town area.
• Opening the right bank (1886–1895): Organized settlement of Kamikawa District began around 1886. When Kamui, Asahikawa and Nagayama villages were created in September 1890, the right bank of the Ishikari belonged to none of them. The first settlers there, people from Saitama Prefecture and others, entered the Chikapuni plain on 15 April 1891, around today's Asahimachi–Ōmachi in Asahikawa. A Hokkaido Government ordinance of 4 February 1892 created Takasu Village to cover the whole right bank. Its population doubled from about 600 in 1893 to about 1,300 a year later, and the village got its own office in 1895.⁹ The town's industrial-park page dates the founding to February 1891.²⁵ The town celebrates 4 February 1892 as its founding and marked the 130th anniversary in 2022.⁶
• Shrinking the giant village (1897–1924): Aibetsu split off in 1897. The Chikabumi area was transferred to Asahikawa Town in 1902, taking 384 households and 1,750 people. Pippu split off in 1906.⁹ In 1898 Kawabe Genzaburō (川辺源三郎), a settler bringing a lion dance from Toyama Prefecture, dedicated a male lion (雄獅子) to Kitano Shrine.²⁶ In the Taishō era, development shifted to the Osarappe area. Residents of the Chikabumi plain then pushed for separation. On 4 June 1924 the old village became Higashitakasu, and the present Takasu (Osarappe area) and Etanbetsu became separate villages.⁹
• Rice and water: The museum records how settlers built irrigation to draw water from the Ishikari and fought to control floods on the Osarappe River. It displays one of only two models in Hokkaido of the wooden pipes used for irrigation intakes.²²
• Postwar: The population peaked at 10,436 at the 1960 Census.²¹ From the later 1960s people left for the cities. From the late 1970s Takasu became a farming suburb of Asahikawa.²⁵ It became a town on 1 January 1969.⁶ Health checkups for all residents began in 1975. Three years in, they showed that residents were short of vitamins, and this led to home-made tomato juice. The juice was named Okami no Momo in 1983,²⁷ the year the town's own timeline gives for the start of sales.¹ Full-scale production began in 1986 under the Takasu Agricultural Promotion Corporation (鷹栖町農業振興公社).²⁷
• Growth years (1978–2008): Milestones in this period:
  • 1978: the Local History Museum opened.
  • 1981: Melody Bridge was completed.¹
  • 1990: Honda opened its proving ground,¹⁶ and the Asahikawa-Takasu IC on the Dō-ō Expressway opened on 30 October.²⁸
  • 1991–2003: new housing estates were built, including Paradigm Town (1991) and Symphony Town (2003) in Kitano and Forest Town (1994) and Harmony Park (1998) in Takasu.¹³
  • 1994: Takasu Melody Hall opened.
  • 1995: sister-city ties with Gold Coast were signed.¹
  • 2008: a new 5.9 ha section of industrial land was completed.²⁵
• Recent:
  • 2018: the farm-training center Attaka Farm (あったかファーム) opened.¹
  • June 2022: the town declared itself a "Zero Carbon City."⁶
  • August 2023: the Takasu Distillery was completed in the Chūō district.⁶
  • March 2024: 399 horseshoeing tools and related items became a Registered Tangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan.²² According to Japanese Wikipedia, this was the first such registration in Hokkaido.²³
  • 2024: a rainstorm dropped 177 mm in one day and caused damage.¹³
  • September 2024: the Domaine Toi winery was completed in Hokuto.⁶
  • November 2025: a Tsuruha drugstore and the town product shop Takamāru opened.²⁹
  • May 2026: the town newsletter was renamed Attakasu.⁶

• Setting: Takasu lies at the northern end of the Kamikawa Basin. It is a small basin of its own, ringed on the east, north and west by a horseshoe of hills.¹⁰ Rural roads follow a near-perfect grid.⁴ The town spans 11.8 km east–west and 19.7 km north–south, between 43°47′ and 43°57′N and 142°16′ and 142°25′E.³⁰

• Districts: The town has five districts. Takasu and Kitano are built-up; Chūō, Hokuto and Hokusei are farm districts.⁴

• Land use (tax survey):¹³

  • paddy fields: 26.3%
  • upland fields: 7.0%
  • forest: 33.2%
  • residential land: 2.3%

• Honda's test site: Honda's proving ground alone covers 7.89 km², about 5.7% of the town.¹⁶

• Osarappe River (オサラッペ川): a 25.7 km tributary of the Ishikari with a 195.5 km² basin. It rises in the hills on the Wassamu boundary, flows south through the middle of town and joins the Ishikari at the town's southern tip.²⁰¹

• Arashiyama (嵐山): Arashiyama rises on the southern boundary with Asahikawa. Its forest grows on serpentinite soils and includes many plants of scientific interest.²⁴ The Arashiyama area belongs to the national Arashiyama–Kamui Natural Recreation Forest (嵐山・神居自然休養林), which extends into Takasu.³¹ No national, quasi-national or prefectural natural park was found in the town.

• Climate (town observations since 1964):¹³

  • Record high: 37.7 °C on 31 July 2021.
  • Record low: −37.6 °C on 17 February 1978.
  • Wettest day: 189.5 mm on 6 September 1991.
  • Warmest year: an annual mean of 8.9 °C in FY2023, the highest on record.
  • Snow: on average the first snow falls on 27 October. Lasting snow cover starts on 24 November and melts by 15 April.
  • Frost: the last spring frost comes around 18 May on average.

  Honda reports that snow falls for about half the year, from November to April, and that some winter days drop below −20 °C.¹⁶

• Farming:
  • Rice is the base of the economy.¹ In 2025, 3,317 ha were planted. Paddy rice took 2,418 ha; forage 455 ha; wheat 81 ha; grains and beans 80 ha; buckwheat 57 ha; vegetables 35 ha.¹³
  • Rice varieties in 2023: Nanatsuboshi on 1,015 ha (43.5%), Yumepirika on 774 ha (33.2%) and Kirara 397 on 404 ha (17.3%).¹⁴
  • The town counts its cucumbers as a high-value crop.¹ In 2023, 35 growers farmed 5.9 ha of cucumbers and 58 growers farmed 3.9 ha of tomatoes for processing.¹⁴
  • The 2020 Census of Agriculture counted 227 farm businesses, 265 dairy cattle and 126 beef cattle.¹³
  • A FY2023 town survey found 258 farm households, 29 of them incorporated. The average farmer was 62.6 years old.¹⁴
• Jobs: 3,159 residents were employed at the 2020 Census. Primary industry employed 532 (525 in farming), secondary 419 and tertiary 2,011.¹³ In the 2021 Economic Census the town had 259 business establishments with 2,517 workers. Medical and welfare work was the largest field, with 875.¹³
• Industry:
  • The Takasu Industrial Park (たかす工業団地, 19.8 ha) sits on the Asahikawa boundary near the Asahikawa-Kita IC. Its tenants include Asahikawa Nissan, Hokuren's compound-feed and trucking arms, and the Kamikawa Rice Terminal.²⁵
  • Honda's proving ground opened in 1990. Its 6,180 m winding course (1993) has a 57.5 m elevation change and copies the character of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The site also has a high-speed loop (1995) and courses that recreate European and U.S. roads, with 54 road-surface types in all.¹⁶
• Tourism: Hokkaido counted 105,400 visitors in FY2025. All were day-trippers from within Hokkaido, and August was the busiest month, with 31,200. The survey recorded no overnight guests.³²
• Population trends:
  • In 2020, 34.6% of residents were 65 or older and 12.2% were under 15.¹³
  • In FY2024 there were 30 births and 104 deaths, and the population fell by 109 overall.¹³
  • School numbers had risen from 1999 as families moved into the new housing estates. They peaked in 2014 and are now falling.¹³
• Revitalization efforts:
  • Attaka Farm has trained 15 people since 2018, and 10 of them went on to start farms.¹⁴
  • The town's rice has become a popular furusato nozei gift.³³
  • The Takamāru shop sells local goods, and craft drink makers have set up in town.²⁹⁶

Other gifts listed include Okami no Momo (a 3-bottle set for a ¥15,000 donation) and local honey.³⁴ Takamāru, the town product shop, sells Okami no Momo, other foods and crafts, Honda goods and merchandise of the pro volleyball team Voreas Hokkaido.²⁹

• Kitano Shrine lion dance: The dance came to Toyama Prefecture from old Kaga Province (Ishikawa). A settler brought it to Takasu, and the lion was dedicated in 1898.²⁶ In December 1978 it became the town's first designated cultural property.²² Its preservation society marked 60 years in 2025.⁶ The shrine is in the Kitano district.⁴
• Maruyama Haiku Monument Forest (丸山句碑の森, 21-sen 13-gō): about 180 stones carved with haiku stand in natural woodland. The tea-house-style Genkyū-an (玄穹庵) is rebuilt from part of a pioneer-era house. Ezo corydalis and other wildflowers bloom here in spring.⁴⁸
• Takasu Melody Hall (たかすメロディーホール, Minami 2-jō 4-chōme): a 502-seat hall with seats upholstered in Yūkara-ori (ユーカラ織) weave. It hosts touring concerts and plays, and local dance, folk-song and band groups perform there.⁴⁹ It opened in 1994.¹
• Music names: After Melody Bridge, the town gave music-themed names to other places, such as Melody Hall, Harmony Town and Symphony Town.¹⁸
• Town Day (町民の日): set as 8 August in 1974.¹
• "Hawks" exchange (ホークス交流): Takasu is one of several municipalities named with 鷹 ("hawk") that have held summits together.⁵⁰

• Both "Takasu" and Asahikawa's "Chikabumi" come from the Ainu name Chikap-un-i.¹¹⁹ In 1894, as Asahikawa's streets were being laid out, Ainu living scattered around the area were gathered at Chikabumi, which became the site of an Ainu settlement.¹⁹ At that time Chikabumi still belonged to the original Takasu Village. It passed to Asahikawa Town in 1902.⁹ Chikabumi today has an Ainu memorial museum displaying houses, clothing and tools.¹⁹ Hokkaido's Ainu-culture guide describes the Kawamura Kaneto Ainu Memorial Museum (川村カ子トアイヌ記念館), opened in 1916 by the Kawamura family, as the oldest Ainu museum in Japan.⁵¹ See Asahikawa.
• Arashiyama Park (嵐山公園): The park straddles the Asahikawa–Takasu boundary.²⁴
  • The Ainu Culture Forest "Denshō no Kotan" (アイヌ文化の森・伝承のコタン) has three reconstructed chise (traditional houses), run by the Asahikawa City Museum.
  • There is a chashi-kotsu (fort or lookout site).
  • A monument honors Kuchinkoro (クーチンコロ).²⁴
  • The Arashiyama Park Center, whose address is Arashiyama, Takasu-chō, includes an exhibit of Ainu materials.⁵²
• In Takasu itself: No Ainu cultural facility run by the town was found. The Ainu heritage visible in town is mainly in place names: Takasu and the Osarappe River.¹²⁰

• Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia: sister city since 18 November 1995.⁷¹
  • Takasu chose nearby Albert Shire as its friendship partner, and resident exchanges began in FY1991. When Albert merged into the new City of Gold Coast in March 1995, the tie moved to Gold Coast.
  • The partnership was reaffirmed in 2015 and in 2025. For the 30th anniversary, Mayor Tom Tate visited in August 2025, and a Takasu delegation signed a reaffirmation in Gold Coast that November.
  • Each year a young Gold Coast resident works in Takasu as an assistant language teacher (since FY1991), and Takasu students visit Gold Coast. Gold Coast also has a park called "Takasu Garden."⁷¹
• Matsuura, Nagasaki Prefecture: formerly the town of Takashima (鷹島町). Takasu met it through the "Hawks Summit" of municipalities whose names contain 鷹. Takasu sends elementary pupils there in August, and Matsuura pupils visit Takasu in January.⁵⁰ The wider Hawks group, which also included Takanosu (now Kitaakita), Mitaka and Shirataka, disbanded at the end of March 2007.⁴

• Masashi Arikura (有倉雅史, born 1967): professional baseball pitcher from Takasu. He played for the Nippon-Ham Fighters, Daiei Hawks and Hanshin Tigers (1990–1998).⁷²
• Takahiro Chiba (千葉隆広, born 2005): left-handed pitcher from Takasu on a Yomiuri Giants development contract.⁷³