Yoichi 余市町

"Yoichi" comes from Ainu. The town's chronology starts with the 1669 Tsugaru Ittōshi (津軽一統志), written at the time of Shakushain's War. It spells the name 與市 and describes "40 houses and an old fort" there⁶. Hokkaido's official list of Ainu place names gives two competing etymologies and rates both as uncertain (confidence level C)¹⁷:

• Yu-ot-i (ユオッイ, yu-oci): "place where there are hot springs". This theory (Uehara) says there was a hot spring upstream.
• I-ot-i (イオッイ, i-oci): "place where there are many snakes" (Nagata). A note in the list explains i ("it") as the Ainu habit of not naming feared or sacred creatures directly.

A comment by Yamada in the list says neither reading can be confirmed¹⁷. Other Ainu names survive nearby. Shiripa Cape (シリパ岬), the town's landmark headland, comes from sir-pa, "mountain head", meaning a promontory¹⁸.

• Prehistory: people have lived here since the Jōmon period. The Nishizakiyama Stone Circle is a late-Jōmon burial site (about 3,500 years ago)¹⁶. Fugoppe Cave belongs to the Epi-Jōmon period, about 2,000–1,500 years ago¹⁵. The Ōyachi shell midden is a national historic site¹⁹.
• 1599: the Matsumae lord Yoshihiro divided the Yoichi River basin between two retainers as the trading fiefs (basho) of Upper and Lower Yoichi¹.
• 1806–1853: merchants ran the Yoichi basho under contract. Kashiwaya Fujino Kihei held it from 1806, then Takeya Chōshichi (the first Hayashi Chōzaemon) from 1825⁶. In 1853 the Takeya built the Lower Yoichi trading house (unjōya) that still stands¹². A second attempt at a road from Yoichi to Iwanai began in 1856⁶.
• 1868–1871: in 1868 Yoichi counted 1,497 people, including permanent residents and seasonal workers; 1,148 of them were men. The Kaitakushi abolished the basho contract system in 1869⁶. In 1871 a group of about 600 people from the former Aizu domain settled the lower Yoichi River, in today's Kurokawa and Yamada districts⁶. In January 1871, 193 of them sealed a pledge in blood (御受書) to develop the land. The document is now held by the Fisheries Museum¹⁰.
• 1875–1879: in 1875 Horace Capron, the Kaitakushi's American adviser, handed out apple, pear and cherry saplings. In 1879 two Aizu households in Yamada harvested what the town calls Japan's first apples. One variety was named Hi-no-koromo (緋の衣, "scarlet robe"), after two things Aizu remembered: the scarlet robe Emperor Kōmei gave the Aizu lord, and the scarlet carpet laid down when Aizu surrendered its castle¹⁰.
• 1900–1920s: the town was formed in 1900, and Yoichi Station opened in 1902⁶. Tōhoku Imperial University set up an orchard here in 1912; it is now Hokkaido University's Yoichi orchard. The first national census, in 1920, counted 16,809 people, and that year's herring catch reached 67,495 koku (about 50,600 t)⁶.
• 1931–1934: a Hokkaido fisheries research station opened at Hamanaka in 1931. In 1934 Taketsuru founded Dai Nippon Kajū (大日本果汁) in Kurokawa. The company was renamed Nikka Whisky in 1952⁶.
• 1950s–1960s: the Fugoppe carvings were found in 1950 and made a national historic site in 1953⁶. Herring stopped coming into Yoichi Bay after the 1954 season¹. Hokkaido's first tourist fruit farm opened in 1964¹¹. In 1969 the Fisheries Museum opened⁶ and the first Hokkai Soran Festival was held¹.
• 1971–1998: the Unjōya was designated in 1971 and the Fukuhara fishery in 1982. The sister-city tie with Scotland was signed in 1988. Mohri flew on Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992, and the Space Museum opened in 1998⁶. The museum later closed for a time and reopened in 2010¹.
• 2011–2018: the town was named a wine special zone in 2011, and a basic ordinance on local self-government took effect in 2018. The Yoichi interchange of the Shiribeshi Expressway opened in December 2018⁶²⁰. The town now puts Sapporo about 50 minutes away by expressway¹⁴.
• 2022: ten Nikka distillery buildings were designated a National Important Cultural Property on 9 February. The designation had been recommended in November 2021⁹, which is why the town's own overview gives 2021¹⁴. In March, Yoichi dropped its call to keep the Yoichi–Otaru railway and agreed that the whole Oshamambe–Otaru "Yama-sen" line will be replaced by buses²¹.
• 2023–2026: new friendship ties followed with Takehara (Hiroshima), two Taiwanese localities and Gevrey-Chambertin in Burgundy^22232425. The expressway reached Niki in March 2025²⁰. The 2026 Taste Festival was called off, and the Soran Festival moved to August at Yoichi Port²⁶²⁷. Work on a planned new roadside station near Yoichi IC continues²⁸.

Yoichi lies at the base of the Shakotan Peninsula, about 60 km from Sapporo and 100 km from New Chitose Airport. It faces the Sea of Japan to the north, and low hills surround it on the other three sides⁶. The Yoichi, Nutchi, Nobori and Fugoppe rivers run through the town. The Yoichi River rises on Mt. Yoichi-dake and spreads alluvial soils suited to orchards¹. The river is promoted as the home of the "northernmost ayu" (北限の鮎, sweetfish)¹⁷. The highest peak listed for the town is Tengu-dake (872.3 m) on the Furubira border¹.

The town has about 17 km of coastline, and part of it lies in the Niseko-Shakotan-Otaru Kaigan Quasi-National Park (ニセコ積丹小樽海岸国定公園)¹⁶. The coast is lined with rock formations:

• Shiripa Cape formed about 6.3 million years ago, when thick magma erupted on the seabed and built a lava dome. The cape shows columnar jointing¹⁸.
• Candle Rock (ローソク岩) is a 43 m sea stack about 500 m offshore. It is made of hyaloclastite, lava that shattered as it cooled in water, and crumbles easily. Its present shape dates from a large collapse sometime in 1935–1944²⁹.

The warm Tsushima Current keeps Yoichi mild for Hokkaido, and the wide gap between day and night temperatures suits fruit growing¹. Normals at the Yoichi weather station (1991–2020)³⁰:

• Temperature: annual mean 8.3 °C, ranging from −3.8 °C in January to 21.3 °C in August.
• Precipitation: 1,325 mm a year.
• Snow: 865 cm of snowfall a year, with an average peak depth of 129 cm.

Records are 34.9 °C (16 August 1984) and −21.5 °C (17 February 1978). The deepest snow on record was 196 cm (10 February 2006)³¹.

• Workforce: Yoichi combines farming and fishing. At the 2020 Census, 8,136 residents were in work. Agriculture employed 1,234 (15.2%), fishing 153 and manufacturing 611. Services (32.3%) and wholesale, retail, restaurants and lodging (22.3%) employed the most⁶.
• Farms: the number of farm households fell from 494 in 2005 to 361 in 2020⁶.
• Fruit (FY2023 harvest)⁶:
  • table grapes 2,530 t
  • apples 2,410 t
  • wine grapes 965 t
  • cherries 318 t
  • prunes 312 t
  • pears 208 t
• Vegetables (FY2024)⁶:
  • tomatoes 1,500 t, of which 1,200 t are mini tomatoes
  • strawberries 240 t
  • green beans 190 t
• Wine: under the 2011 special zone, a winery licence needs only 2,000 L of annual output instead of the usual 6,000 L. Farmers who serve their own wine at a farm inn or restaurant are exempt from the minimum altogether. The number of wineries rose from 2 in 2010 to 19 in 2024⁶. The Tourism Association counts more than 50 vineyards⁷.
• Fisheries (FY2024 landings)⁶:
  • flatfish (karei) 471.8 t
  • octopus 194.7 t
  • Atka mackerel (hokke) 191.7 t
  • yellowtail 161.4 t, up from 56.8 t the year before
  • herring 129.6 t
  • salmon 110.7 t
  • shrimp 89.9 t
  • Squid fell from 21.6 t to 2.7 t.
• Seafood processing: Yoichi processes herring on a large scale. One firm, Sanjirushi Kikuchi Suisan, handles more than 1,000 t of raw fish a year³².
• Tourism: visitor numbers climbed from 386,081 in FY2020 to 1,048,750 in FY2024. Of those, 289,475 visited the roadside station⁶.
• Furusato nōzei: donations grew from ¥59 million in FY2017 to about ¥1.94 billion in FY2025³³. The money funds programmes such as child-care support and a "gastronomy tourism" project built around wine (about ¥29.5 million in FY2025)³³. A 2026 crowdfunding drive seeks ¥300 million for roads around the Nobori-district vineyards³⁴.
• Population and ageing: the population peaked in 1960¹. People aged 65 and over made up 40.8% of residents in August 2025⁶.

Traditions and culture:

• Scottish ties: through the Scottish link, public buildings such as the library and fire station were given Scottish-style designs (the "Rita Road" project), and a bagpipe band was formed⁴⁷. The 1996 station building is Scottish in style too⁴⁸.
• Soran-bushi: a monument in Toyohama marks Yoichi's claim to be the song's birthplace¹.

Museums: the Yoichi Fisheries Museum sits on top of Moire-yama. Its four floors cover¹⁹:

• a one-third-scale kitamae-bune cargo ship (1F)
• archaeology, and the Aizu settlers and their apples (2F)
• the Amauchiyama site and Ainu culture (3F)
• herring fishing (4F)

• Early records: the Ainu of Yoichi appear in records by 1669. Their settlement was big enough for a Japanese chronicle to count 40 houses there⁶. The Unjōya trading house was the base for the Edo-era trade with the Ainu that merchants ran under contract to Matsumae¹².
• Nusa altars: in the early Taishō era (1910s) there were several nusa (Ainu altars) near the Nobori and Nutchi rivers and the mouth of the Yoichi River. As the town grew they were gathered into a raised shrine near the top of Moire-yama. The shrine held inau (ritual whittled sticks), lacquerware and the skulls of bears, foxes and snipe. Locals remember inau there until the 1954 Tōyamaru typhoon; no trace remains today⁴⁹.
• Iboshi Hokuto (違星北斗, 1901/02–1929) was born in Yoichi and is counted among the three great Ainu tanka poets⁵⁰⁵¹. He campaigned for Ainu dignity and published the mimeographed magazine Kotan in Yoichi⁵⁰. In 1927 rock carvings and a stone figure newly found at Fugoppe were credited to the Ainu. In the Otaru Shinbun, Iboshi disputed this, drawing on interviews with elders⁵¹. These finds came long before Fugoppe Cave was discovered in 1950⁶. A monument with one of his haiku stands in front of the Fisheries Museum⁵¹.
• Museum collection: the Fisheries Museum's third floor is given over to Ainu culture¹⁹.
• Yoichi-hime: this yukar (epic) was written down by Kannari Matsu and translated by Kindaichi Kyōsuke¹.

• East Dunbartonshire, Scotland, UK: sister city. The tie was signed on 12 October 1988 with Strathkelvin District, which includes Rita Taketsuru's home town of Kirkintilloch. It was re-signed with East Dunbartonshire on 11 November 1997 after Scotland's local government was reorganised⁴⁷.
• Gojō, Nara: exchange city since 12 July 2015. The link began in 1966, when farm students from Gojō High School's Anō branch started coming to Yoichi. The two also signed a disaster-aid pact in 2014⁶⁰.
• Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima: goodwill exchange city since 14 October 2015, rooted in the Aizu settlers of 1871¹⁰.
• Yuanshan Township (員山郷), Yilan County, Taiwan: friendship exchange agreement since 19 May 2023. It is home to the Kavalan whisky distillery²³.
• Changhua City (彰化市), Taiwan: exchange city since 21 July 2023 (memorandum signed in May 2023). Both are grape-growing areas²⁴.
• Takehara, Hiroshima: exchange city since 26 October 2023. Takehara is Masataka Taketsuru's birthplace²².
• Gevrey-Chambertin, Burgundy, France: goodwill agreement signed on 8 February 2025, built around wine²⁵.

• Masataka Taketsuru (竹鶴政孝): founder of Nikka Whisky and Yoichi's honorary citizen¹. He lived in Yoichi with his Scottish wife Rita⁴⁷.
• Mamoru Mohri (毛利衛): astronaut from Yoichi. He flew on Endeavour in 1992 as Japan's first payload specialist and again in 2000⁶¹³.
• Kazuyoshi Funaki (船木和喜) and Hiroya Saitō (斎藤浩哉): ski jumpers from Yoichi who won gold at the 1998 Nagano Olympics¹⁶.
• Iboshi Hokuto (違星北斗): Ainu tanka poet and activist⁵⁰.
• Chika Sagawa (左川ちか): modernist poet¹.
• Ryōko Sakaguchi (坂口良子): actress¹.