Sorachi空知

🍷Yubari夕張市

Yubari means two things in Japan: the country's most famous luxury melon, and a poignant coal-mining past you can still trace through the valley.

🍷Iwamizawa岩見沢市

Iwamizawa grew up as a railway junction for the coalfields; today it's rose gardens, campgrounds and one of Sorachi's growing wineries.

🍷Bibai美唄市

Bibai's soul food is motsu-yakitori — whole-skewer chicken grilled since the mining days — and each spring thousands of geese stop at Miyajima Marsh.

🍷Ashibetsu芦別市

Ashibetsu calls itself 'the village where stars fall' — big mountain skies above, and a homely chop-suey ramen called gatatan below.

🍷Akabira赤平市

Akabira preserves its coal heritage honestly — a guidance center at the old mine and a 777-step stairway up the slag mountain for the view.

🍷Mikasa三笠市

Mikasa is fossil country: ammonites the size of truck tires in the city museum, and the birthplace of Hokkaido's first railway.

🍷Takikawa滝川市

In late May Takikawa turns gold — one of Japan's largest canola blossom landscapes — and its lamb jingisukan tradition runs deep.

🍷Sunagawa砂川市

Sunagawa is Hokkaido's 'sweets road' — a strip of famous confectioners along the highway that dessert pilgrims drive out from Sapporo for.

🍷Utashinai歌志内市

Utashinai, once a booming coal town, is now Japan's least-populous city — a quiet valley with a ski hill and outsized character.

🍷Fukagawa深川市

Fukagawa is rice and buckwheat country on the Ishikari plain — its roadside station is famous for rice-ball breakfasts done right.

🍷Nanporo南幌町

Nanporo is a market-garden town half an hour from Sapporo, known for cabbage fields and a big roadside farm stand culture.

🍷Naie奈井江町

Naie sits quietly between Sunagawa and Bibai — rice paddies, a town forest park and old Sorachi railway rhythms.

🍷Kamisunagawa上砂川町

Kamisunagawa packs coal-mine museums and a retro drama-set station into one tiny valley town at the end of a branch line.

🍷Yuni由仁町

Yuni's pride is a hillside English garden of herbs and roses — one of Hokkaido's prettiest, an easy drive from the airport.

🍷Naganuma長沼町

Naganuma is Sapporo's favorite countryside: farm stands, jingisukan houses and hilltop wineries barely 40 minutes from town.

🍷Kuriyama栗山町

Kuriyama is home to one of Hokkaido's oldest sake breweries, its historic wooden warehouses open to visitors every spring.

🍷Tsukigata月形町

Tsukigata began as a Meiji-era prison colony that cleared this land; the museum tells that hard story, the melon fields tell the sweeter one.

🍷Urausu浦臼町

Urausu grows grapes on one of Japan's largest single vineyards, rolling over the hills above the Ishikari River.

🍷Shintotsukawa新十津川町

Shintotsukawa was settled by villagers from Nara's Totsukawa after an 1889 flood — a whole community transplanted north, sake brewery and all.

🍷Moseushi妹背牛町

Moseushi — one of Hokkaido's great tongue-twister names — is a pocket-sized rice town with a riverside park built for lazy summer days.

🍷Chippubetsu秩父別町

Chippubetsu grows some of Japan's best broccoli and keeps a rose garden of hundreds of varieties at the foot of its landmark tower.

🍷Uryu雨竜町

Uryu guards the trailhead to Uryunuma — a high moor of ponds and cotton grass that alpine hikers call a miniature Oze.

🍷Hokuryu北竜町

Hokuryu plants a million sunflowers every summer — Japan's most famous sunflower village, blooming through August.

🍷Numata沼田町

Numata lights up one August night with the Yotaka lantern festival — giant illuminated floats clashing in the streets — and fireflies in June.