One of Hokkaido's 179 towns
Memuro芽室町
Sweet corn capital and the birthplace of gateball
Tokachi region · Hokkaido's breadbasket — big skies, gardens and food at the source.
Memuro leads Japan in sweet corn and invented gateball — grandma-approved sport of champions — amid perfectly gridded Tokachi fields.
Memuro is Obihiro's western neighbour, a farm town on the flattest part of the Tokachi plain where the fields are laid out in an almost perfect grid. It grows more sweet corn than any other municipality in Japan, and it invented gateball, the mallet-and-hoop game played in parks nationwide. A wooded hill on the edge of town gives a view over the pattern of the fields, and the Hidaka foothills begin a short drive west. It is a quiet base close to the city for anyone who wants to see farming at scale.
- Region
- Tokachi (十勝)
- From New Chitose Airport
- ~140 km · 2.2 h summer / 2.5 h winter
- From Sapporo
- ~180 km · 2.8 h summer / 3.3 h winter
- Best season in Tokachi
- June–September for gardens and farm country in full growth; winter brings dry blue-sky cold and hot springs.
Memuro 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 Memuro
Shin-Arashiyama Sky Park
新嵐山スカイパーク
A hilltop park west of the centre with a lookout over the gridded fields toward Obihiro and the Hidaka range, ski slopes in winter and a campground in the woods below.
Memuro Park
芽室公園
The town's main park along the Memuro River, with old elms and oaks, a rose garden and playgrounds, the everyday green space where the gateball courts are never far away.
Mt. Tsurugi
剣山
A rocky peak in the Hidaka foothills on the town's western edge, a half-day climb with a chained final scramble and a view that takes in the whole plain from the mountain side.
Memuro history museum Nenrin
ふるさと歴史館ねんりん
A small town museum on settlement history, the tools of Tokachi's early farmers and the story of how gateball was devised here in the postwar years.
Getting to Memuro
Memuro station on the JR Nemuro Main Line is about 15 minutes from Obihiro by local train. The Doto Expressway's Memuro interchange and National Route 38 both run through the town, and Tokachi-Obihiro Airport is about 40 minutes by car. Sapporo is about 2.5 to 3 hours away on the expressway.
Tokachi region: Fly to Tokachi-Obihiro Airport or take the JR limited express from Sapporo (about 2.5 hours). A car unlocks the garden road.
When to visit Memuro
August to September, when the sweet corn comes in and stands sell it boiled or grilled along the roads. June for green fields and roses in the park, October for harvest traffic and colour on the foothills. Winter brings skiing on the Shin-Arashiyama slopes.
What to eat in Memuro
Sweet corn first, eaten fresh in late summer and processed for the rest of the year. Potatoes, beans, wheat and sugar beet share the fields, and dairy farms supply milk and cheese. Pork and beef from the plain appear in the town's grilled-meat restaurants.
Memuro in context: the Tokachi region
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Tokachi is agricultural Hokkaido at full scale: a vast inland plain where the fields run to the horizon and much of what Japan eats is grown. Obihiro, its capital, invented butadon — the caramelized pork rice bowl — and keeps the world's only banei draft-horse racing.