290px, Tomamae town hall 290px, Port of Tomamae 290px, Tomamae wind farm is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

located in

Rumoi Subprefecture is a Subprefectures of Hokkaido, subprefecture of Hokkaido, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. As of 2011, it had a population of 52,627 and an area of . The population density of the subprefecture, 13 people per km2, is very low compared to the rest o ...

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. , the town had an estimated

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 2,659 in 1,428 households, and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

of 5.8 people per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Tomamae is located in the part of Rumoi jurisdiction in northern Hokkaido, facing the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

to the west.

Neighbouring municipalities

** Haboro **

Obira Obi (also called Obira) is the main island in the Obi Islands group of Indonesia, south of the larger Halmahera in North Maluku. Its area is 2,542 km². The island is eponymous to the Obi Island Birdwing, an endemic Endemism is the ...

Climate

Tomamae has a

Humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...

(Köppen ''Dfb'') characterized by cold summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Tomamae is 6.8 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1207 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 20.5 °C, and lowest in January, at around -6.5 °C.

Demographics

Per Japanese census data, the population of Tomamae is as shown below. The town is in a long period of sustained population loss.

History

The area of Tomamae has been inhabited since the

Jōmon period In Japanese history, the is the time between , during which Japan was inhabited by the Jōmon people, a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united by a common culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism an ...

, and was the site of a ''kotan'' was built by the

Ainu people The Ainu are an Indigenous peoples, indigenous ethnic group who reside in northern Japan and southeastern Russia, including Hokkaido and the Tōhoku region of Honshu, as well as the land surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, such as Sakhalin, the Ku ...

. When

Matsumae Domain file:Matsumae Nagahiro.jpg, 270px, Matsumae Nagahiro, final daimyo of Matsumae Domain The Matsumae Domain (松前藩), a prominent domain during the Edo period, was situated in Matsumae, Matsumae Island (Ishijima), which is currently known as M ...

advanced into the area in the

Keichō was a after '' Bunroku'' and before '' Genna''. This period spanned from October 1596 to July 1615. The reigning emperors were and . Change of era * 1596 : The era name was changed to ''Keichō'' to mark the passing of various natural disaste ...

era (1596-1615), a trading settlement was built. In 1786, the Tomamae Shrine, a

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

was constructed. The village of Tomamae was created in 1880, and separated from Haboro in 1894. It was raised to town status on October 1, 1948.

Government

Tomamae has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a

unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature consisting of one house or assembly that legislates and votes as one. Unicameralism has become an increasingly common type of legislature, making up nearly ...

town council of eight members. Tomamae, as part of Rumoi sub-prefecture, contributes one member to the Hokkaidō Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of the

Hokkaidō 10th district is a single-member electoral district for the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet of Japan. The district is located in the prefecture ''(-dō)'' of Hokkaidō and represents the municipalities within Hokkaido's Sorach ...

of the

lower house A lower house is the lower chamber of a bicameral legislature, where the other chamber is the upper house. Although styled as "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or otherwise e ...

of the

Diet of Japan , transcription_name = ''Kokkai'' , legislature = 215th Session of the National Diet , coa_pic = Flag of Japan.svg , house_type = Bicameral , houses = , foundation=29 November 1890(), leader1_type ...

Economy

The local economy of Tomamae is centered on

commercial fishing Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for Commerce, commercial Profit (economics), profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice ...

and agriculture. The town also operates it own

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

station, producing (in 2024) a surplus of 575% more power than is consumed in the town and providing a substantial incoming source to the town government.

Education

Tomamae has two public elementary schools and one public junior high school operated by the town government, and one public high school operated by the Hokkaidō Board of Education.

Transportation

Railways

After the closure of the

Japan National Railway The , abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987. Network Railways As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pre ...

Teshio Line in 1987, the town has not had any passenger rail service.

Highways

* *

Mascot

Tomamae's mascot is , better known as . He is a 7-year-old brown bear cub. He wears a hat that has two badges (a windmill badge and a badge dedicated to agricultural and seafood products).

References

External links

*
Official Website
Towns in Hokkaido Rumoi Subprefecture Populated coastal places in Japan {{Hokkaido-geo-stub