One of Hokkaido's 179 towns
Obihiro帯広市
Farm-country capital where butadon was born
Tokachi region · Hokkaido's breadbasket — big skies, gardens and food at the source.
The capital of Tokachi farm country. Butadon (pork rice bowl) was invented here, and the surrounding plains produce much of what Japan eats.
Obihiro is the city at the centre of the Tokachi plain, a grid of straight streets laid out by settlers in the 1880s and surrounded on every side by farmland that runs to the Hidaka and Daisetsu mountains. It is known for butadon, the caramelized pork rice bowl invented here, for its confectionery makers and for banei racing, in which draft horses drag iron sleds up dirt ramps. Use it as the base for the whole region: the gardens, dairies and hot springs of Tokachi all sit within an hour's drive.
- Region
- Tokachi (十勝)
- From New Chitose Airport
- ~168 km · 2.6 h summer / 3 h winter
- From Sapporo
- ~205 km · 3.1 h summer / 3.7 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.
Obihiro 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 Obihiro
Banei Tokachi (Obihiro Racecourse)
ばんえい十勝（帯広競馬場）
The world's only surviving draft-horse sled races, run year-round at the city racecourse. Horses weighing close to a tonne haul weighted sleds over two earthen humps while the crowd walks alongside the track.
Midorigaoka Park
緑ヶ丘公園
The city's big central park, with the Obihiro Centennial City Museum on settlement history and Ainu culture, a small zoo, an art museum and lawns that fill with ice sculptures in winter.
Obihiro Ice Festival
おびひろ氷まつり
Held each winter, the city's festival fills Midorigaoka Park with ice sculptures, snow slides and food stalls in dry, minus-teens cold under clear skies.
Heigen Matsuri
平原まつり
Obihiro's August summer festival, several days of dancing and parades through the centre. A big fireworks display on the Tokachi River is held in the same month, when the whole plain seems to come into town.
Getting to Obihiro
Tokachi-Obihiro Airport is in the south of the city, about 40 minutes from the centre by bus. JR limited expresses on the Sekisho and Nemuro Main Lines link Obihiro station with Sapporo in about 2.5 hours. By car it is about three hours from Sapporo on the Doto Expressway; National Routes 38, 236 and 241 fan out across the plain.
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 Obihiro
June to September, when the fields are green and every road out of town is a drive through crops. August brings the Heigen Matsuri. Winter is cold but famously sunny and dry; the winter ice festival and banei races on frozen ground are the reasons to come then.
What to eat in Obihiro
Butadon, thick slices of pork grilled in a sweet soy glaze over rice, is the dish every visitor eats first. Beyond it the city runs on Tokachi produce: wheat, beans, potatoes, dairy and the sweets that a century of confectionery makers have built on them. Food-stall alleys downtown serve it all in the evening.
Obihiro 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.
Towns near Obihiro
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