Urausu 浦臼町

The name comes from the Ainu name of the Urausunai River (浦臼内川), but its meaning is disputed¹:

• Uray-us-pet (ウライウシペッ), "river with many fish weirs". Weirs were built here to catch salmon and trout. Japan's railway station-name books give this form, and the Hokkaido Government's list calls the "weir" reading the general one²³.
• Uray-us-nay (ウライウシナイ), "river where there are weirs". The Ainu place-name scholar Yamada Shūzō supported this form²³. He doubted the -pet ending, because the explorer Matsuura Takeshirō and old local names record the name as "Urausunai" or "Urausinai"¹.
• Uras-nay (ウラシナイ), "bamboo-grass river", a reading proposed by Nagata Hōsei. Yamada thought it may have been confused with other uras names in Hokkaido, such as Urashibetsu (浦士別)¹²³.
• A fourth theory, from Uehara, links the name to the guts (腸) of fish and animals left from hunting and fishing. The list marks it as doubtful²³.

• Ainu era: Japanese Wikipedia says the area was inhabited from the Jōmon period¹. The town museum shows finds from a chashi (Ainu fort) site²⁴. In 1857 Matsuura Takeshirō recorded 16-year-old Mataichi, the future Ainu leader Kotoni Mataichi (琴似又市), as a resident of Urashinai (Urausu)²⁵.
• 1807: Kondō Jūzō (近藤重蔵) explored the Urausu area¹.
• 1887: Convicts from the Kabato Prison (樺戸集治監) in Tsukigata cut a road from Tsukigata to Osokinai. This opened the land to farming⁸.
• 13 July 1893: Takechi Yasuya (武市安哉), a Kochi member of the House of Representatives, resigned his seat. He arrived at Sattek (札的) with the first 27 settlers from Kochi and named the land Seien Farm (聖園農場, "Holy Garden Farm"). The settlers promised to rest and worship on Sundays and to neither sell nor drink alcohol¹⁴.
• 2 December 1894: Takechi died of a stroke aboard the Seikan ferry on his way back to Hokkaido¹⁴. His relative Sakamoto Naohiro (坂本直寛), Sakamoto Ryōma's nephew, took over the farm¹⁴.
• 1897–1898: A new church was built near Urausu Pond in November 1897. The great flood of 1898 destroyed many settlers' homes²⁶. Naohiro moved to Urausu in May 1898 to run Seien Farm (the town's Wikipedia article says 1897)¹⁵¹. In 1902 he left the farm to his sister-in-law Tome and his nephew and moved to Asahikawa¹⁵. Tome was the widow of Ryōma's adopted heir, Takamatsu Tarō. Tome and her son ran a small sweets shop (駄菓子屋) in Urausu for the rest of their lives, and the family is buried in town¹⁶.
• 27 May 1899: Urausu Village split from Tsukigata Village¹.
• 1910: Urausu Shrine was completed on 9.9 ha of land donated by Tomonari Shisutarō in 1898²²²⁷.
• 10 October 1934: Urausu Station opened on what became the Sasshō Line (札沼線)²⁸.
• 1 September 1960: Urausu became a town¹.
• 1971–1979: In 1971 Mayor Tomonari Kazuo consulted the people who went on to found Hokkaido Wine about large abandoned paddy fields. Test planting began in 1972 and the Tsurunuma vineyard was founded in 1974. The first commercial wine, a Müller-Thurgau, came out in 1979²⁹.
• 1992–1998: The town's third-sector company, Urausu Resort Development Corporation, planned a large resort in the bubble years. The plan was linked to the 1992 Fuji Bank Akasaka branch loan scandal. In 1998 the company went into special liquidation with ¥13.5 billion of debt¹.
• 1997–1999: Jinnai Farm 21 (神内ファーム21) was built on 280 ha of farmland and 320 ha of forest, including the former resort land, and was completed on 15 August 1999³⁰.
• 1999: Friendship ties with Motoyama, Kochi (27 February)¹. On 27 August the Michi-no-Eki Tsurunuma was registered as Hokkaido's 60th roadside station²¹.
• 1 June 2019: A Lawson opened, the town's first convenience store¹. In October 2019 the town opened its Gibier Processing Center for Ezo deer³¹.
• 7 May 2020: The Sasshō Line north of Hokkaidō-Iryōdaigaku closed, leaving Urausu without a railway. Trains had already stopped on 17 April because of the COVID-19 state of emergency²⁸.
• 2024: The operator of the Natural Recreation Village Center left at the end of March. The town has run the Urausu Onsen baths directly since 12 April 2024, and the lodging and restaurant are suspended³²²⁰.

• Setting: Urausu lies on the right (west) bank of the Ishikari River, near the centre of Sorachi. The ridge of the Kabato Mountains (樺戸山地) forms the western border with Tobetsu. The Kabato-sakai River (樺戸境川) marks the northern border with Shintotsukawa, and the Toreshipputaushinai River the southern border with Tsukigata⁷.
• Land: The town is almost flat, with many rivers and ponds between the mountains and the river⁸. Of its 10,183 ha, 3,460 ha is farmland (2,450 ha paddy, 1,020 ha upland) and 4,888 ha is forest¹⁸.
• Mountains: Mt. Kumaneshiri (隈根尻山), Mt. Kabato (樺戸山) and Mt. Urausu (浦臼山)¹.
• Rivers and ponds: The Ishikari, Urausunai, Kinausunai, Osatsunai, Sattekinai and Osokinai rivers. Ponds include Tsurunuma (鶴沼), Urausu-numa, Pira-numa and Toi-numa¹.
• Climate: Summers are warm with moderate rain, which suits farming. Winters are very snowy, with 8–9 m of snow in a normal year⁸. Hokkaido Wine says the day–night temperature gap reaches about 10 °C in the April–October growing season, which helps the grapes¹¹. The Urausu weather station (AMeDAS) measures only precipitation, with an annual normal of 1,532.7 mm; August is the wettest month at 184.6 mm (1991–2020)³³.
• Nearest full weather station: Bibai, across the Ishikari River. Its 1991–2020 normals are 7.3 °C for the year, −6.6 °C in January and 21.2 °C in August, with 766 cm of snowfall a year and a typical maximum snow depth of 116 cm³⁴. Its records are 35.6 °C (2021), −29.6 °C (30 January 2023) and a snow depth of 167 cm (2012 and 2018)³⁵.

• Farming is the core: Urausu grew up as a rice-growing farm village. It now also produces flowers, melons, potatoes, asparagus, botan soba and wine grapes⁸. Estimated farm output in 2024 was ¥4.10 billion. Rice made up ¥3.17 billion, fruit ¥450 million, vegetables ¥190 million and livestock ¥140 million¹⁸.
• Crops (2025): Paddy rice covered 1,660 ha and yielded 9,830 t. Wheat covered 223 ha, buckwheat 115 ha and soybeans 52 ha¹⁸. Rice fills 73.9% of the cultivated land (2023). The town has about 2,308 ha of certified paddy land³⁶.
• Farms: 160 farm businesses and 414 people working on farms at least 60 days a year (2020 Census of Agriculture)¹⁸. Farmers are ageing and there are too few successors. The town is shifting to mixed farming with wheat, soba, mini tomatoes, garlic, melons and kanro melons. New farmers can train for two years as community-support workers with about ¥230,000 a month in support³⁷.
• Companies:
  • Hokkaido Wine's Tsurunuma Winery. Hokkaido Wine is based in Otaru²⁹, and its head winery makes more Japanese wine than any other winery³⁸.
  • Jinnai Farm 21, which raises red Wagyu (神内和牛あか)³⁰³⁹.
  • Hokkaido Agrimart, a juice and food processor in Osatsunai⁴⁰.
  • The Hokkaido Chevreuil Urausu venison plant, run by Aimaton³¹.
• Tourism: Urausu had 152,000 visitors in FY2025, down from 176,400 in FY2024. Most were day-trippers from within Hokkaido, and only 6,500 stayed overnight. August was the busiest month, with 36,000 visitors⁴¹.
• Population decline: The population fell from 3,058 in 1990 to 1,732 in 2020⁷, and to 1,533 in the 2025 preliminary count⁵.
• Revitalization:
  • Venison processing (gibier). Urausu was Hokkaido's first gibier model district³¹.
  • Furusato nozei. The town won a Bronze Furusato Honpo Award in 2024 as a "hidden excellent municipality"⁴².
  • A plan to rebuild the Michi-no-Eki and Urausu Onsen as one "exchange hub"⁷.

• Older events: Japanese Wikipedia also lists an Urausu Summer Festival, a "Wine Village Festival in Urausu" and a botan soba harvest festival¹. The town's current event pages do not show them, so check before planning around them (unverified).
• Urausu Shrine (浦臼神社): The shrine was founded as Tsurunuma Shrine and renamed in 1968. Its present hall came from a Sumitomo shrine at Ikushunbetsu, Mikasa, in 1972. Three extra log pillars help it carry heavy snow²⁷.
• Seien Church (聖園教会): This Church of Christ in Japan congregation has continued since 1893 at Urausunai 183-38. Its fourth church building, a wooden hall finished in 1959, was modelled on the old Sapporo Kita-Ichijō Church²⁶.
• Urausu Local History Museum (浦臼町郷土史料館): It shows belongings of Sakamoto Naohiro and of Ryōma's elder brother's family, and papers on Ryōma. It also covers the Iwamura Farm of Hokkaido's first governor, Iwamura Michitoshi, and his son Hassaku²⁴.
• Other heritage: A haiku stone by the poet Yamaguchi Seishi, a "Lovers' Sanctuary" (恋人の聖地) in a stone warehouse called "Kura", and a farm-machinery exhibition hall¹.

Little Ainu history of Urausu is well documented. The main traces are place names. The town never reformed its aza names, so Ainu-derived names still appear in addresses such as Urausunai, Kinausunai, Osatsunai and Sattekinai; the Michi-no-Eki's address is 字キナウスナイ188¹²¹.

• Osatsunai (於札内): o-sat-nay, "river whose mouth dries up". It is a gravel river whose lower reaches dry out⁵⁵.
• Osokinai (晩生内): The station-name source gives o-soske-nay, "river whose mouth is crumbling". Nagata recorded a different, doubtful form⁵⁵.
• Sattekinai (札的内): sattek-nay, "river that grows thin". In summer its water sinks into the gravel bed⁵⁶.

The Ainu leader Kotoni Mataichi (琴似又市) is recorded as a young man from Urausu. He later led the Kotoni area of Sapporo and studied in Tokyo in the 1870s²⁵. The Local History Museum shows finds from a chashi site²⁴. There is no Ainu cultural facility in town. For Ainu culture, see Shiraoi or Biratori.

• Motoyama, Kōchi Prefecture (高知県本山町): friendship ties since 27 February 1999¹⁷¹. Kochi is the old Tosa Province, home of the Christian settlers who founded Seien Farm¹⁴. Motoyama specialties are sold at the Summer Taste Festival and at Amai Kura in the Michi-no-Eki⁵²⁶⁴.
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• Takechi Yasuya (武市安哉, 1847–1894): Kochi politician who founded Seien Farm and Seien Church in 1893¹⁴.
• Sakamoto Naohiro (坂本直寛, 1853–1911): freedom-and-people's-rights activist and pastor, nephew of Sakamoto Ryōma. He ran Seien Farm from 1898¹⁵.
• Kotoni Mataichi (琴似又市): Ainu leader, recorded as a youth from Urausu in 1857²⁵.
• Igawa Ihei (井川伊平): former member of the House of Councillors and parliamentary vice-minister for Hokkaido Development, who went to school at Urausu Seien¹.
• Kanbara Masaru (神原勝): public-administration scholar and professor emeritus of Hokkaido University, from Urausu¹.