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 290px, Rumoi city hall 290px, central Rumoi is a city in Rumoi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 18,132 in 10519 households, and a population density of 61 people per km2. The total area of the city is . T ...

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 2,642 in 1,444 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 7.5 people per km². The total area of the town is .

Geography

Teshio is located in the northernmost part of Rumoi jurisdiction in northern Hokkaido, surrounded by the left bank of the downstream

Teshio River The is a river in Hokkaido, Japan. At , it is the second-longest river on the island (after the Ishikari) and the fourth-longest in the country (after the Shinano, Tone, and Ishikari). A Class A river, the Teshio is the northernmost major rive ...

. The central town area, where the town hall is located, is at the mouth of the river, and the hamlet of Onobunai is located along

Japan National Route 40 is a National highways of Japan, national highway connecting Asahikawa and Wakkanai in Hokkaidō, Japan. Route data *Length: 243.0 km (151.0 mi) *Origin: Asahikawa (originates at the terminus of Japan National Route 12, 12 and the o ...

Neighbouring municipalities

** Enbetsu ** Horonobe ** Nakagawa

Climate

Teshio 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 Teshio is 6.9 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1176 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 20.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around -5.2 °C.

Demographics

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

History

The mouth of the Teshio River was an excellent port due to a natural breakwater formed by a sand spit that developed long into the Sarobetsu Plain, and it was blessed with abundant natural resources from the sea and mountains, so 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 ...

as long as 3000 years ago and it became a key anchorage and trading point. 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 early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, it became a trading place between the Ainu and Japanese, and later a guard post was established. During the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, an agricultural land development project was carried out to also serve as a defense for the north, and many pioneers from the Tohoku and

Hokuriku region The is located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lies along the Sea of Japan and is part of the larger Chūbu region. It is almost equivalent to the former Koshi Province (Japan), Koshi Province and Hokurikudō are ...

s settled here. The area also became a collection point for timber cut from the forests of the Teshio River Basin and the timber industry flourished with the establishment of branches of timber wholesalers. The population increased with the arrival of people engaged in the fishing of

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

, and

trout Trout (: trout) is a generic common name for numerous species of carnivorous freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of which are members of the subfamily Salmoninae in the ...

, shipping companies, and various commercial and industrial businesses, and various administrative facilities such as the county office, police, and forestry office were also established, and the area flourished as one of the core cities in northern Hokkaido. The area was also the first area in Hokkaido where modern

commercial whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

was carried out, and it is said that large whales such as

gray whale The gray whale (''Eschrichtius robustus''), also known as the grey whale,Britannica Micro.: v. IV, p. 693. is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of , a weight of up to and lives between ...

s and

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the monotypic taxon, only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh u ...

s were once seen in large numbers along the coast. The village of Teshio was established in 1878 and raised to town status in 1880. In the postwar period, like other towns and villages in northern Hokkaidō, depopulation has progressed due to the outflow of population to large cities following the collapse of the herring fisheries and decline of the forestry industries.

Government

Teshio 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 nine members. Teshio, 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 Teshio 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 ...

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 ...

, agriculture and forestry. The town has the largest catch of '' shijimi'' clams in Hokkaidō from the Teshio Rive,

Education

Teshio has one public elementary school 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. 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

* *

Sister city relations

Homer, Alaska Homer (Denaʼina language, Dena'ina: ''Tuggeght'') is a City (Alaska), city in Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, Anchorage. According to the 2020 United ...

, USA since 1984 *

Tomari, Russia Tomari () is a coastal types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Tomarinsky District in Sakhalin Oblast, Russia, located on the western coast of the Sakhalin, Sakhalin Island, northwest of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ...

since 1992.

Mascot

Teshio's mascot is who is a superhero basket clam. He is given a "te" (天)-shaped badge to symbolize his honor by people especially children and the elderly. He uses his index finger to send signals.

References

External links

*
Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Teshio, Hokkaido Towns in Hokkaido Rumoi Subprefecture Populated coastal places in Japan