One of Hokkaido's 179 towns
Assabu厚沢部町
May Queen potatoes and hiba forests inland from the coast
Hiyama region · The quiet Japan Sea coast where the herring boom lives on.
Assabu is the birthplace of the May Queen potato in Japan — buttery-smooth and beloved in every hotpot since.
Assabu is the farming town in the hills between Hakodate and Esashi, one of the two Hiyama towns with no coastline. The May Queen potato was first grown in Japan here in the 1920s and it is still the town's signature crop. Around the fields stand forests of hiba cypress, the tree that gave the whole Hiyama district its name, and the last castle of the Matsumae clan was built and lost here in 1868. It is a place to stop on the road, eat well and walk in the woods.
- Region
- Hiyama (檜山)
- From New Chitose Airport
- ~197 km · 3 h summer / 3.6 h winter
- From Sapporo
- ~205 km · 3.2 h summer / 3.7 h winter
- Best season in Hiyama
- Summer for Okushiri's water and uni; August for Esashi's famous Ubagami shrine festival.
Assabu 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 Assabu
Michi-no-Eki Assabu
道の駅 あっさぶ
The roadside station on Route 227 halfway between Hakodate and Esashi. Potatoes and local vegetables by the sack in season, and the natural break on the drive over to the coast.
Tate Castle ruins
館城跡
A national historic site where the Matsumae clan hurriedly built a new castle in 1868 and lost it to the ex-shogunate army within weeks. Earthworks and foundations remain in a quiet grove.
Hiba forest at Tsuchihashi
土橋自然観察教育林
A protected stand of hiba cypress with easy walking trails, the tree that once covered these hills and named the district. Cool in summer and a good place to understand why the forest mattered here.
Assabu River
厚沢部川
The river that gives the town its name, flowing down from the hills through the potato fields and on to the Japan Sea at Esashi. Route 227 follows its valley toward the coast, so much of the drive through town runs beside the water.
Getting to Assabu
Assabu sits on Route 227 about an hour by car from Hakodate, and Esashi is another twenty minutes on the same road. Hakodate Airport and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto shinkansen station are the gateways; buses between Hakodate and Esashi stop in town. There is no railway in Assabu.
Hiyama region: Reach Esashi by car or bus from Hakodate (about 1.5 hours); ferries to Okushiri run from Esashi and Setana.
When to visit Assabu
September and October for the potato harvest, when the roadside station is at its fullest and the hills start to color. June to August for the forest trails. The road over from Hakodate stays open in winter but the town is mostly snowed in.
What to eat in Assabu
The May Queen potato is the whole story here, smooth and firm and the reason Japanese stew cooks ask for the variety by name. Black soybeans and rice come from the same fields, and other vegetables fill the roadside station in autumn.
Assabu in context: the Hiyama region
Click a town to open its page
Hiyama is the Hokkaido almost no international traveler sees — a string of small ports down the Japan Sea coast where the 19th-century herring boom left merchant houses, shrine festivals and streetscapes that feel preserved rather than restored. Esashi, its historic heart, keeps an Edo-flavored main street above a working harbor.