280px, Aerial view of Shosanbetsu urban center 280px, Shosanbetsu Kompira Jinja is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

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 village 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 1,005 in 501 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 3.6 people per km². The total area of the village is .

Geography

Teshio is located in the northern part of Rumoi jurisdiction in northern Hokkaido, on 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 ...

coast. Main rivers: Furenbetsu River, Shosanbetsu River, Mochibetsu River

Neighbouring municipalities

** Enbetsu ** Haboro

Climate

Shosanbetsu 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 Shosanbetsu is 7.1 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1563 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 20.4 °C, and lowest in January, at around -5.0 °C.

Demographics

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

History

The place name of "Shushabetsu" first appears in historical documentation in 1781. It was established as a village onJune 7, 1900. The village's official interpretation of its name is that it is from the

Ainu language Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu (), is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isola ...

"Sousanbetsu (waterfall, flowing river)", but the Hokkaido Ainu Policy Promotion Office's "List of Ainu Place Names" lists it as "so-e-san-pet" (waterfall, flowing river), and also lists the view that it may be "so-san-oet" (waterfall, descending river) based on the description of the place by Matsuura Takeshiro, an explorer from the late Edo and Meiji periods.

Government

Shosanbetsu 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 ...

village council of eight members. Shosanbetsu, 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 Shosanbetsu 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 ...

, with

puffer fish Tetraodontidae is a family of marine and freshwater fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowers, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, ...

and octopus noted local specialities. Agriculture and

dairy farming Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for the long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy) for the eventual sale of a dairy product. Dairy farming has a h ...

are also conducted.

Education

Shosanbetsu has one public elementary school and one public junior high school operated by the village government. The village does not have a high school.

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 village has not had any passenger rail service. The closest train stations are or on the

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

Sōya Main Line The is a Japanese railway line operated by Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido) in Hokkaido. The line connects Asahikawa Station in Asahikawa and Wakkanai Station in Wakkanai, and is the northernmost railway line in Japan. The name c ...

Highways

Local attractions

280px, Shosanbetsu observatory * Shosanbetsu observatory is a planetarium-cum-astronomical observatory which is a popular attraction in this region.

Noted local residents

Yamamoto Heikichi was a Japanese hunter. He is best known as a local hero for killing Kesagake, the giant brown bear involved in the Sankebetsu brown bear incident. He is reportedly to have killed over 300 brown bears in his lifetime. A resident of On'ne-no-sawa ...

, famed bear hunter noted in the

Sankebetsu brown bear incident The , also known as the or the , was a series of bear attacks which took place 9-15 December 1915, at the beginning of the Taishō era, in a remote area of Hokkaido, Japan. Over the course of six snowy days, a male Ezo brown bear attacked a nu ...

Mascot

Shosanbetsu's mascot is who is an alien bear. Her ears resemble shooting stars. She wears a helmet that resembles the Shosanbetsu observatory, a necklace made of blue honeysuckle and a pochette that resembles a pufferfish. She was designed by Eiichi Shiozaki of

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

References

External links

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