is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

and

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

Iburi Subprefecture is a subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Geography Located in south-central Hokkaido, Iburi stretches East-West and North-South. Iburi covers an area of . Iburi borders Oshima Subprefecture to the West, Shiribeshi, Ishikari, an ...

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. It is the largest city in the Iburi Subprefecture, and the fourth largest city in Hokkaido. As of 31 July 2023, it 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 167,372, with 83,836

household A household consists of one 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 im ...

s, 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 298 persons per km² (770 persons per mi²). The total area is . The city is known for its high catch of Arctic surf clams.

History

The name of Tomakomai is derived from Ainu words "to" and "makomai", meaning "Marsh" and "River which goes into the depths of the mountain", respectively. *1879: Yūfutsu branch of Hokkaidō Development Commission was transferred into Tomakomai (Foundation anniversary). *1902: Tomakomai became second class village. *1918: Tomakomai village became Tomakomai town. *1948: Tomakomai town became Tomakomai city. *1963: Tomakomai Port (West) was opened. *1980: Tomakomai Port (East) was opened. *6 September 2018: Tomakomai City is the nearest city from the epicenter of the

2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the moment magnitude scale struck Iburi Subprefecture in southern Hokkaido, Japan, on 6 September 2018 at 3:08 a.m. JST. The earthquake's epicenter was near Tomakomai and occurred at a depth of . The Japan ...

Geography

Mount Tarumae is located in the Shikotsu-Toya National Park in Hokkaidō, Japan. It is located near both Tomakomai and Chitose towns and can be seen clearly from both. It is on the shores of Lake Shikotsu, a caldera lake. Tarumae is a 1,041 metre active a ...

is located in the northwest of Tomakomai and belongs to

Shikotsu-Tōya National Park is a national park in the western part of the island of Hokkaidō, Japan. Named after the volcanic caldera lakes of Lake Shikotsu and Lake Tōya, it has a total area of 993.02 square kilometers. The popular hot spring resorts of Noboribetsu ...

Climate

Tomakomai 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 ...

typical of Hokkaido.

Transportation

Airport

New Chitose Airport is an international airport located south-southeast of Chitose, Hokkaidō, Chitose and Tomakomai, Hokkaidō, Japan, serving the Sapporo metropolitan area. By both traffic and land area, it is the largest airport in Hokkaidō. It is adjacent ...

Rail

Chitose Line The is a railway line in Hokkaido operated by Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido), connecting Numanohata Station, Numanohata, Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Tomakomai and Shiroishi Station (JR Hokkaido), Shiroishi Station in Shiroishi-ku, Sapporo, link ...

: Numanohata - Uenae *

Hidaka Main Line The is a railway line in Hokkaido, Japan, operated by Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido), between Tomakomai Station in Tomakomai and Samani Station in Samani, running along the coast of Hidaka Subprefecture. Services on the 116.0 ...

: Numanohata - Yūfutsu *

Muroran Main Line The is a railway line in Hokkaido operated by Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido), between Oshamambe Station in Oshamambe, Hokkaido, Oshamambe and Iwamizawa Station in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, Iwamizawa, approximately paralleling the coast of Ibu ...

: Nishikioka - Itoi - Aoba -

Tomakomai is a city and port in Iburi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the largest city in the Iburi Subprefecture, and the fourth largest city in Hokkaido. As of 31 July 2023, it had an estimated population of 167,372, with 83,836 households, an ...

- Numanohata

Road

Hidaka Expressway The is a partially tolled expressway in Iburi Subprefecture and Hidaka Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. The expressway connects Hidaka to the Dō-Ō Expressway. It is owned and operated by partially by the East Nippon Expressway Company and the ...

Dō-Ō Expressway The is a national expressway in Hokkaido, Japan. It is owned and operated by East Nippon Expressway Company. Naming The road is named the Dō-Ō Expressway ( "Central Hokkaidō Expressway") in Japanese; however, it's also known as the Hokkaid ...

Seaport

* Tomakomai West Port Ferry Terminal: connected with regular ferry services by MOL Ferry,

Taiheiyō Ferry The is a privately-owned cruiseferry operator connecting Nagoya, Sendai, and Tomakomai, Hokkaido, Tomakomai in Japan. It is a subsidiary of the Nagoya-based Meitetsu Group, a group of companies that focuses primarily on rail transport in the Ch� ...

K Line is a Japanese transportation company. It owns a fleet that includes dry cargo ships (bulk carriers), container ships, liquefied natural gas carriers, Ro-Ro ships, tankers, and container terminals. It used to be the fourteenth largest contai ...

Kinkai.

Education

University

* Hokuyou University

College

* National Institute of Technology, Tomakomai College

High schools

Public

* Hokkaido Tomakomai Higashi High School * Hokkaido Tomakomai Minami High School * Hokkaido Tomakomai Nishi High School * Hokkaido Tomakomai Sogokeizai High School * Hokkaido Tomakomai Technical High School

Private

* Komazawa University Tomakomai High School * Tomakomai Chuo High School

Sports

In 2014, Tomakomai hosted the

World Broomball Championships The IFBA World Broomball Championships (WBC), formerly the "World Broomball Championships", is the premiere international competition for the sport of broomball and is organized and administered by the International Federation of Broomball Assoc ...

. Tomakomai is home to the

Asia League Ice Hockey Asia League Ice Hockey (; ) or ALIH (AL) is an association which operates a professional ice hockey league based in East Asia, with teams from Japan, South Korea, and formerly China and Russia. The league is headquartered in Japan. At the end of ...

team Red Eagles Hokkaido.

Sister cities and friendship cities

Sister cities

* Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan (since 1973) * Napier,

Hawke's Bay Region Hawke's Bay () is a region on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. The region is named for Hawke Bay, which was named in honour of Edward Hawke. The region's main centres are the cities of Napier and Hastings, while the more rural ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

(since 1980) * Nikko, Tochigi, Japan (since 1982)

Friendship city

Qinhuangdao Qinhuangdao (; zh, s=秦皇岛, link=no) is a port city on the coast of China in northern Hebei. It is administratively a prefecture-level city, about east of Beijing, on the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea. Its population d ...

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

(since 1998)

Notable people from Tomakomai

*Yushiroh Hirano, ice hockey player,

Adirondack Thunder The Adirondack Thunder are a professional ice hockey team in the ECHL that began play in the 2015–16 season. The team is based in Glens Falls, New York, and affiliated with the NHL's New Jersey Devils and AHL's Utica Comets. The Thunder play t ...

Tsutomu Kawabuchi Tsutomu Kawabuchi (; 16 May 1925 – 19 January 2014) was a Japanese ice hockey player, coach and administrator. He won Japanese hockey championships as a player and as a coach with Iwakura, and later coached the Japan men's national ice hockey ...

, ice hockey player and coach, member of the

IIHF Hall of Fame The IIHF Hall of Fame is a hall of fame operated by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). It was founded in 1997, and has resided at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto since 1998. Prior to 1997, the IIHF housed exhibits at the Interna ...

Asami Kimura was a Japanese female idol music group that is a part of Hello! Project. On November 5, 2014, Country Musume was rebooted and renamed with new members.Hello! Project is a Japanese musical collective consisting of all female recording artists and groups under Up-Front Promotion, a subsidiary of Up-Front Group. The name was initially used as Michiyo Heike and Morning Musume's fan club name in 1999, but ...

and former

Country Musume was a Japanese female idol music group that is a part of Hello! Project. On November 5, 2014, Country Musume was rebooted and renamed with new members.Eiichi Kudo was a Japanese film director. Kudo directed 30 films between 1956 and 1998, the most notable being '' 13 Assassins'' (1963) and '' The Great Killing'' (1964). He joined the Toei film company in 1952 and made his film director debut with ''Fuka ...

, film director *Junko Misaki,

enka is a Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern ''enka'', however, is a relatively recent musical form which adopts a more traditional musical style in its vocalism than ''ryūkōka'' music, pop ...

singer *

Ippei Mizuhara is a Japanese interpreter. Mizuhara served as the interpreter for Major League Baseball player Shohei Ohtani, translating Japanese to English and vice versa for Ohtani's media appearances and teammate interactions. He previously worked for th ...

, Interpreter for

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

*Takuya Onodera, professional wrestler best known as T-Hawk *

Kei Sanbe is a Japanese manga artist born in Tomakomai, Hokkaido and raised in Chiba Prefecture. He has formerly worked under the pseudonym . He is married to illustrator . Sanbe was an honorable mention in the 1990 40th Tezuka Award and a semi-final win ...

, manga artist *

Naoki Sano (born February 2, 1965) is a Japanese retired professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist most notable for being the generational rival of legendary Japanese pro wrestler Jushin Liger. During the last years of his career he went by th ...

, professional wrestler *

Hisayoshi Sato is a Japanese swimmer. He won a bronze medal in the men's 4 × 100 metre medley relay at the 2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were ...

, swimmer *

Shokichi Shokichi Yagi (八木将吉 ''Yagi Shōkichi''; born October 3, 1985, in Tomakomai, Hokkaido), better known by his stage name SHOKICHI, is a Japanese singer, dancer, songwriter, composer and actor. He is a vocalist and performer of Exile and Exi ...

, member of

Exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

and Exile The Second

References

External links

Official Website
{{Authority control Cities in Hokkaido Port settlements in Japan Populated coastal places in Japan