Horonobe, Hokkaido

Horonobe is a town in Sōya Subprefecture on the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan. It sits in the mid-west of the Sōya region on the Sea of Japan coast, where the Teshio River, the second longest river on Hokkaido, reaches the sea at the southwestern end of the town. Inland lies the Sarobetsu Plain, a vast marshland that was once a lagoon, alongside farmland and pasture reclaimed from the wetland, while the mostly hilly eastern part is forest, much of it a research forest of Hokkaido University. The 45th parallel north crosses the town. The name comes from the Ainu words poro and nup, meaning a large uncultivated grassland. The village was founded in 1878, settled from 1898 and 1899, and raised to town status in 1960. Dairy farming and reindeer ranching are the main industries, and the town has a humid continental climate with cold, snowy winters.