One of Hokkaido's 179 towns
Nakasatsunai中札内村
Edamame fields and an art village in the birches
Tokachi region · Hokkaido's breadbasket — big skies, gardens and food at the source.
Nakasatsunai is edamame country with an art twist — a confectioner's sculpture garden village blooms among the birch groves.
Nakasatsunai is a farming village south of Obihiro, on the fan of the Satsunai River where it leaves the Hidaka mountains. It grows edamame at a scale few places in Japan match, and it is known for an art village and flower garden set in birch woods, created by a Tokachi confectioner. The Satsunai valley leads up to a waterfall and forested campgrounds at the edge of the mountains, and the region's airport is just across the village boundary. Good for a slow half day of gardens, galleries and farm produce.
- Region
- Tokachi (十勝)
- From New Chitose Airport
- ~143 km · 2.2 h summer / 2.6 h winter
- From Sapporo
- ~190 km · 2.9 h summer / 3.4 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.
Nakasatsunai 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 Nakasatsunai
Nakasatsunai Art Village
中札内美術村
Galleries scattered through a birch forest, showing Hokkaido painters and sculptors in low wooden buildings, with a sister flower garden nearby that blooms with alpine plants and lupins.
Pyoutan Falls
ピョウタンの滝
A broad cascade on the Satsunai River in the Hidaka foothills, formed when a small dam was buried by a flood. A park with lawns and a campground surrounds it.
Michi-no-Eki Nakasatsunai
道の駅なかさつない
The roadside station on National Route 236 sells the village's edamame, beans, eggs and chicken products and has a small museum of settlement history and a bean hall next door.
Satsunai River gorge
札内川の渓谷
Upstream from the falls the river cuts into the mountains toward a dam and campgrounds, with clear water, gravel bars and autumn colour on the slopes.
Getting to Nakasatsunai
Tokachi-Obihiro Airport is next door, about 10 minutes by car, and Obihiro is about 30 minutes north on National Route 236. The Obihiro-Hiroo Expressway has a Nakasatsunai interchange. There is no railway; the nearest station is Obihiro. Sapporo is about 3.5 hours by car.
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 Nakasatsunai
June to September, with the flower garden at its best in early summer and edamame harvest from August. October for colour in the birches and the Satsunai valley. The art village closes for winter.
What to eat in Nakasatsunai
Edamame, sold fresh in late summer and frozen year-round, is the village's calling card. Local chicken and eggs are the other names, along with dairy. Beans, potatoes and wheat cover the rest of the farmland.
Nakasatsunai 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.