About Asahikawa · 旭川について
Asahikawa is Hokkaido’s second city and calls itself the base city of the north. It sits in the Kamikawa Basin, Hokkaido’s largest, where the Ishikari, Ushishubetsu, Chūbetsu and Biei rivers meet. It grew from Meiji farmer-soldier villages and an army town, and 309,393 people lived here on 1 September 2026.[2][4][63][1][58]
Grab a warm drink. Here’s my town in five minutes.5分でまちを紹介！
The city tree is the Japanese rowan. Its red berries match my scarf![59]マフラーとおそろい！Read at your own pace. I’ll wait right here!ごゆっくり！Before 1890 the area was called Chūbetsu, after the Ainu name of the Chūbetsu River. The city museum’s first Ainu place-name sign (2003) writes the river’s name as Chiw pet; a later sign at the Kitasaito Garden (2018) uses Chuk pet. The Kawamura Kaneto Ainu Memorial Museum still gives its address in Ainu as Yaunmosir Chiwpet-kotan.[13][14]
In February 1890, seven months before the villages were created, the Hokkaido Mainichi Shimbun printed comments by Okabe (岡部方幾), a sergeant at the farmer-soldier headquarters. He said that in Ainu pronunciation Chūbetsu was Chuppet, with chup meaning “sun” or “east” and pet meaning “river”, so a name such as 旭川, “rising-sun river”, would keep the old meaning while also honoring the Empire. The place-name scholar Nagata Hōsei gave almost the same reading in his 1891 dictionary of Hokkaido’s Ainu place names.[4]
Later scholars said the chup-pet reading of the river’s name was wrong. Chiri Mashiho read it as chiw-pet, “wave (swift-current) river”, and Yamada Hidezō proposed chuk-pet, “autumn river”.[4]
The city has basically read its name Asahi-kawa, although the 1890 official gazette that announced the new village printed Asahi-gawa. Asahikawa Station and the central post office used Asahi-gawa until JR Hokkaido changed the station reading in March 1988; post offices and other facilities then followed.[4]
Chikabumi (Chikap-ni), Kamuikotan (Kamuy-kotan), the Ushishubetsu River (ウシㇱ ペッ) and Arashiyama (Chi-nomi-sir) all have Ainu names. Since FY2003 the city has put up bilingual Ainu–Japanese signs, 42 of them by December 2025. The city translates Kamuikotan as “village of the gods”.[13][15]
Some of these moments come from Ainu oral history, as the Kawamura Kaneto Ainu Memorial Museum tells it.[62]
Jōmon period
Finds show early settlement. The Kamuikotan pit-dwelling site is a Hokkaido-designated historic site.[4]
KamuikotanLate Edo period
Matsuda Ichitarō and Matsuura Takeshirō are among the first Japanese to explore the Daisetsuzan range.[4]
Late Edo or early Meiji
Ainu oral history, as told by the Kawamura museum, remembers the Kamikawa chief Kuchinkure. When officials tried to move his people down to Ishikari, he argued the land had been given to them by the gods, not by the Japanese government, and the order was dropped.[62]
Chinomishir Kamuynomi1877
The first Japanese settler, Suzuki Kamezō, arrives at today’s Kamekichi.[4]
1885
Iwamura Michitoshi and Nagayama Takeshirō survey the basin from Chikabumi-yama. A monument to that view now stands in Arashiyama Park.[1][4]
Arashiyama Lookout & Hoppō Yasōen1892
Another 400 farmer-soldier households settle in Asahikawa Village, today’s Higashi-Asahikawa district.[63][1]
Higashi-Asahikawa1902
On 25 January the thermometer reads −41.0 °C, still the lowest ever recorded at a Japan Meteorological Agency observatory.[10]
1916
The Kawamura Kaneto Ainu Memorial Museum opens. It calls itself Japan’s oldest Ainu museum.[37]
Kawamura Kaneto Ainu Memorial Museum1922
Asahikawa becomes a city on 1 August. The same year, the young Ainu writer Chiri Yukie, who had lived in Asahikawa, writes the preface to Ainu Shin’yōshū, her collection of Ainu sacred songs; it is dated 1 March. She died at 19.[1][37]
The Day the Silver Drops Fall1932
The present Asahibashi Bridge and the Sekihoku Line to the Okhotsk coast are completed.[1]
Asahibashi Bridge1972
Heiwa-dōri Kaimono Kōen opens as Japan’s first permanent pedestrian shopping street.[2]
Heiwa-dōri Kaimono Kōen2004
In July and August, Asahiyama Zoo draws more visitors than any other zoo in Japan.[1]
2025
The city hosts the 28th National Confectionery Exposition, with 261,336 visits over 17 days.[65]
Averages are 1991–2020 normals at the Asahikawa observatory.[21][22]
Adopted on 29 June 1911. The star outline stands for Hokkaido, and the red sun at the center for Asahikawa as Hokkaido’s central city.[59]
The first pitcher in Japanese professional baseball to win 300 games. The city’s Hanasaki baseball stadium is nicknamed “Starffin Stadium”.[4]
Singer of the rock band Anzen Chitai.[4]
Javelin thrower and Paris 2024 Olympic gold medalist; she received Asahikawa’s Citizens’ Honor Award.[4]
Basketball player who played in the WNBA; she also received Asahikawa’s Citizens’ Honor Award.[4]