is a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in

Sorachi Subprefecture is a subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of J ...

Hokkaido is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island 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 from Honshu; th ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. As of April 30, 2017, the city has an estimated

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction usi ...

of 8,612, with 5,030

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is i ...

s. The total area is 763.20 km². Hemmed in by mountains Yūbari stretches for 25 kilometers along a mountain valley. The city is famous for the Yubari Melon and the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, which skipped a show in 2007 due to the city's financial crisis.It is also birth place of Mitsuharu Misawa.

History

The city was founded on April 1, 1943 as a coal mining town. When the mines were operating Yūbari had as many as 120,000 people. With the closing of the mines in the 1980s, an attempt was made to convert the economic base to tourism. Subsidies were obtained from the central government and huge debts incurred for the building of tourist attractions, but few visitors came. In 2007 the city was in the news due to bankruptcy and the refusal of the national government to bail it out. City services had been severely cut and its

white elephant A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is a metaphor used to describe an object, construction project, sch ...

amusement park and museums were up for sale. The amusement park has begun to be demolished as of June 2008. Roughly half of Yūbari's government officials resigned in March 2007 as part of an attempt to streamline the local fiscal situation. The majority of officials stepping down who responded to a survey conducted by ''Mainichi Shimbun'' say they "feel no sense of responsibility" for the city's financial problems.

Geography

* Mountain : Mount Yūbari * River :

Yūbari River is a river in Hokkaidō, Japan. It is the namesake of Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire ...

Climate

Education

High school

* Hokkaido Yubari High School * Hokkaido Yubari Special High School

Junior high school

* Yubari Junior High School

Elementary school

* Yubari Elementary High School

Transportation

Rail

The central train station was Yūbari Station on the Yubari branch of the Sekishō Line, formerly operated by

JR Hokkaido The is one of the constituent companies of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group), and is often referred to using its official abbreviation of . It operates intercity and local rail services in Hokkaido, Japan. The company introduced Kitaca, a sm ...

. However on March 31, 2019 the Yubari branch line closed after 127 years of operation"JR Hokkaido's Yubari Line: A Beloved Local Line Comes to an End", NHK World TV Japan Railway Journal (August 09 2019) https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2049066/ , requiring passengers from Yubari to take the bus service to Shin-Yūbari Station. * Sekishō Line (Main Line) : Takinoue - Tomisato - Shin-Yūbari - (Kaede Passing Loop) * Sekishō Line (Yūbari Branch Line - now closed): Shin-Yūbari - Numanosawa - Minami-Shimizusawa - Shimizusawa - Shikanotani - Yūbari

Road

* Dōtō Expressway : Yūbari IC

Bus

* Hokkaido Chuo Bus * Yubari Tetsudo

Sister city

Fushun Fushun (, formerly romanised as ''Fouchouen'', using French spelling, also as Fuxi ()) is a prefecture level city in Liaoning province, China, about east of Shenyang, with a total area of , of which is the city proper. Situated on the Hun Rive ...

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmo ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

(since April 1982)

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yubari, Hokkaido Cities in Hokkaido