One of Hokkaido's 179 towns
Ashoro足寄町
Giant butterbur and a five-colour lake under Meakan
Tokachi region · Obihiro food, Tokachigawa Onsen and seasonal gardens on the Tokachi Plain.
Ashoro grows fuki butterbur taller than people and guards Onneto, a five-color caldera lake at the foot of Mt. Meakan.
Ashoro is one of the largest towns by area in Japan, running from the Tokachi hills east into Akan-Mashu National Park. Its two famous things could not be more different: rawan-buki, a butterbur that grows taller than a person along the Rawan River, and Onneto, a small lake at the foot of Mt. Meakan whose colour shifts through blues and greens with the light. A fossil museum in the centre displays sea mammals dug from local rock. It suits drivers between Tokachi and Akan, and hikers heading for the volcano.
- Region
- Tokachi (十勝)
- From New Chitose Airport
- ~226 km · 3.5 h summer / 4.1 h winter
- From Sapporo
- ~249 km · 3.8 h summer / 4.5 h winter
- Best season in Tokachi
- Late spring to autumn for gardens and green farmland; seasonal gardens such as Manabe Garden close in winter, when food, onsen and snowy scenery shape the trip.
Ashoro at a glance
Drive estimates: straight-line × 1.35, at 65 km/h (summer) / 55 km/h (winter). How we calculate
What to see in Ashoro
Onneto
オンネトー
A small lake in Akan-Mashu National Park with Mt. Meakan and Mt. Akan-Fuji mirrored in it, famous for water that changes colour with the weather. A trail circles it and another climbs the volcano.
Rawan-buki
ラワンぶき
Giant butterbur that grows two to three metres tall in the Rawan district, harvested in early summer and cooked as a vegetable. A visit in June puts you under a canopy of leaves.
Ashoro Fossil Museum
足寄動物化石博物館
The town museum holds fossils of Desmostylus and early whales found in Ashoro's rocks, with a hands-on room where children can clean replica fossils.
Michi-no-Eki Ashoro Ginga Hall 21
道の駅あしょろ銀河ホール21
The roadside station in the centre of town, with local produce, rawan-buki products, a small gallery on the town's history and the stop for buses toward Akan and Kitami.
Getting to Ashoro
About 1.5 hours by car north-east of Obihiro on National Route 242 or the Doto Expressway to the Ashoro interchange. Route 241 continues east to Lake Akan in about an hour, with Onneto on a side road before it. There is no railway; Ikeda is the nearest station. Tokachi-Obihiro Airport is about two hours.
Tokachi region: Tokachi-Obihiro Airport and JR Obihiro Station are the main gateways. Plan the last stretch separately: the airport bus into the city, a local bus or taxi to the racecourse or onsen, and a car or taxi for gardens outside the centre.
When to visit Ashoro
June for rawan-buki at full height and its harvest. Late September to mid-October for Onneto in autumn colour with the volcano above. July to September for climbing Meakan. Winter closes the Onneto road.
What to eat in Ashoro
Rawan-buki, simmered, pickled or in soup, is the specialty nobody else has. Beef and lamb from the hill pastures, cheese from small dairies, and potatoes, beans and dairy from the farms appear at the roadside station.
Ashoro in context: the Tokachi region
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Tokachi is an eastern Hokkaido region of 19 municipalities spread across the Tokachi Plain, a wide farming area that reaches far beyond Obihiro city. Obihiro is the usual base, with butadon pork rice bowls, sweets and banei racing, in which heavy draft horses pull sleds along a course.