Kamikawa上川

🦁Asahikawa旭川市

Hokkaido's second city and the gateway to Daisetsuzan National Park. Home of shoyu ramen and Asahiyama Zoo's famously close-up animal enclosures.

🌾Shibetsu士別市

Shibetsu (the Kamikawa one) is Japan's Suffolk sheep capital — lamb pastures on 'Sheep and Cloud Hill' and some of the best mutton dinners anywhere.

🌾Nayoro名寄市

Nayoro grows Japan's best sticky rice, flips to sunflower fields in August, and runs a serious public observatory under dark northern skies.

💜Furano富良野市

Lavender fields in July, powder skiing in January, and wine all year. Furano is the postcard of central Hokkaido — arrive early in summer.

🌾Takasu鷹栖町

Takasu is quietly famous for tomato juice pressed from its own fields — and for sunrise views over the Taisetsu range across the valley.

🌾Higashikagura東神楽町

Higashikagura holds Asahikawa's airport and a lakeside forest park — the flower-bed-lined gateway to the Furano–Biei corridor.

🌾Toma当麻町

Toma grows Densuke — the jet-black luxury watermelon — and hides a limestone cave park in its wooded hills.

🌾Pippu比布町

Pippu is a strawberry town at the foot of the Taisetsu range, with a friendly local ski hill that trains Asahikawa's kids every winter.

🌾Aibetsu愛別町

Aibetsu is Hokkaido's mushroom kingdom — shiitake and friends fill its roadside pots of kinoko ramen.

🌾Kamikawa上川町

Kamikawa town holds Sounkyo — Daisetsuzan's great gorge of columnar cliffs, ropeway alpine views, waterfalls and a winter ice festival.

🌾Higashikawa東川町

Higashikawa, 'Town of Photography', sits at the foot of Asahidake — no water mains (everyone drinks Daisetsuzan snowmelt), great furniture workshops, serious cafés.

🚗Biei美瑛町

Patchwork hills, the Blue Pond, and roads that look painted. Biei rewards a rental car and an early alarm clock.

🌾Kamifurano上富良野町

Kamifurano claims the birthplace of Hokkaido lavender and the highest onsen road in the prefecture, climbing the smoking Tokachidake range.

🌾Nakafurano中富良野町

Nakafurano is the actual address of Farm Tomita — the purple heart of Japan's lavender country each July.

🌾Minamifurano南富良野町

Minamifurano wraps around Lake Kanayama — rafting on the Sorachi River, and the little station made famous by the film 'Poppoya'.

☁️Shimukappu占冠村

Home of Tomamu: cloud-sea terraces at dawn, an ice village in winter, and some of the most reliable tree-run skiing on the island.

🌾Wassamu和寒町

Wassamu overwinters its cabbages under the snow — they come out sweet as fruit — in one of the coldest farm valleys in Japan.

🌾Kenbuchi剣淵町

Kenbuchi is the 'Picture Book Village' — a library-museum of children's books in the fields, with an annual prize voted by kids.

🌾Shimokawa下川町

Shimokawa is a forestry town that became a sustainability pioneer — tower-ice climbing in winter, handmade udon and forest walks in summer.

🌾Bifuka美深町

Bifuka farms sturgeon in the north woods — yes, Hokkaido caviar — beside the Teshio River and a high moor of dwarf pines.

🌾Otoineppu音威子府村

Otoineppu, Hokkaido's smallest village, is famous for jet-black soba and a high school that turns out woodcraft artists.

🌾Nakagawa中川町

Nakagawa digs ammonites out of its riverbanks — a fossil village on the Teshio with a fine little geology museum.

🌾Horokanai幌加内町

Horokanai is Japan's soba-growing champion and its coldest recorded place (−41.2°C) — plus Lake Shumarinai, holy water for giant itou trout anglers.