This town began as the place where the tonden-hei stationed in Hokkaido put the hoe to the ground last, and farthest north. People who were both soldiers and farmers turned a basin in the upper Teshio River into fields. But cold-climate dry farming alone left the men no choice but to leave for seasonal work in Honshu over winter. To keep that winter labor in the town, after the war this town brought in sheep from across the sea. The dry-farming land thus turned into a “sheep town.” The basin opened by the northernmost and last tonden-hei has since fallen below twenty thousand. Shibetsu’s numbers are the record of a place inscribed by the last tonden-hei and by sheep that winter over.
A city set in a basin in the upper Teshio River, in the north of Hokkaido. This town has walked its history as a dry-farming land opened by the northernmost and last tonden-hei to enter Hokkaido, and as a place that turned into a “sheep town” by bringing in sheep after the war. The population fell from 23,065 in 2000, through 23,411 (2005), to 21,787 (2010), 19,914 (2015) and 17,858 (2020), losing some five thousand over twenty years and dropping below twenty thousand. What I (Atlas) want to read here is not the label “sheep town,” but the causal thread: how the history of the last tonden-hei and the sheep that winter over is translated into today’s population and finances.
01 · Shibetsu now, seen in numbers
In the most recent Population Census the population is about eighteen thousand (17,858 in 2020). From 23,065 in 2000, through 23,411 (2005), to 21,787 (2010), 19,914 (2015) and 17,858 (2020), it lost some five thousand over twenty years and dropped below twenty thousand. As befits an inland city of Hokkaido, the slope is rather steep.
Look inside the figure and you see a sheep town opened by the last tonden-hei. The share aged 65 and over rose from 24.2% in 2000 to 41.2% in 2020, up about seventeen points in twenty years, passing four in ten. Households with children were 14.7% in 2020, low even among inland cities. The employment rate was 54.5% in 2020. The childcare waitlist showed four in 2024, a small number, and zero in 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.25 in FY2023 — its own tax revenue covers only about a quarter of expenditure, a level heavily dependent on the local allocation tax. A basin city that the last tonden-hei opened and into which sheep were brought, falling below twenty thousand — that is what the numbers show. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back through the history of the tonden-hei and the sheep.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Local Government Finance Survey — Fiscal Capacity Index (MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency) / Real Estate Information Library (MLIT)
02 · The northernmost and last tonden-hei, the winter seasonal work, the sheep that crossed the sea — the origins behind the numbers
This town’s skeleton is set down by the starting point of the northernmost and last tonden-hei, by the winter seasonal work that came with cold-climate dry farming, and by the sheep brought in to stop it. The first layer is the tonden-hei. Around the end of the Meiji era, a unit of a hundred households of tonden-hei stationed in Hokkaido entered this basin in the upper Teshio River. This was the northernmost, and the last, settlement among the tonden-hei deployed across Hokkaido. People who were both soldiers and farmers, while handling defense of the north, turned the cold land into fields. The northernmost and last tonden-hei were this town’s old foundation.
But that dry farming, in a cold land, left winter labor idle. Through the winter, shut in by snow, the men of the farms had no choice but to leave for seasonal work in Honshu, and town life thinned with each winter. To keep that winter labor in the town, after the war this town made a wager. It brought in sheep from across the sea and set them as a pillar of mixed farming. Combine fields and sheep, and winter, too, generates work. A municipal ranch was opened, and sheep carried from a foreign country were turned out into the basin. In time these sheep became not only the town’s industry but the very name the town took for itself — a “sheep town.” The northernmost and last tonden-hei, the winter seasonal work, and the sheep that crossed the sea. Set these three side by side and you see the town’s ingenuity: trying to fill, with the answer of sheep, the single gap of “idle winter labor” that cold-climate dry farming had taken on. Shibetsu’s present lies on the extension of that ingenuity.
Source: Shibetsu City — the northernmost and last tonden-hei (settlement began in 1899 (Meiji 32) when 100 households of the 5th Company, 3rd Battalion of tonden-hei military colonists settled here, the northernmost and last such settlement placed in Hokkaido; the colonists handled northern defense and development, building railways, drainage ditches and other shared facilities; city status in 1954) / Shibetsu City — Suffolkland Shibetsu (aiming at mixed farming that would spare farmers from leaving for seasonal work in Honshu over winter, the city founded a municipal sheep ranch in the Gakuden district in 1966 and the following year, 1967, imported 100 Suffolk sheep from Australia — the start of the “sheep town,” now the city’s symbol as “Suffolkland Shibetsu”)
03 · In a basin into which sheep were brought, the population falls below twenty thousand
What characterizes Shibetsu is that, carrying the history of the last tonden-hei and sheep, it has cut its population by some five thousand below twenty thousand over twenty years. From 23,065 in 2000 to 17,858 in 2020, the loss exceeds twenty percent. The dry farming the tonden-hei opened and the sheep brought in after the war did stop the winter seasonal work and support town life, but the character of an inland basin where farming is the mainstay makes it hard to create jobs in the town center that hold the younger generation. In the cold land of the upper Teshio River, an outflow of population can be read as having continued. The share aged 65 and over reaching 41.2% in 2020, passing four in ten, is the consequence.
Meanwhile the childcare waitlist showed four in 2024, a small number, but zero in 2025, and households with children were 14.7% in 2020. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.25 is a level at which its own tax revenue covers only about a quarter of expenditure, showing the degree of reliance on the local allocation tax. Dry farming and sheep, and the processing and tourism that follow from them, do support town life, but as an own tax base they are thin. The basin city into which sheep were brought is now raising the age of the town while falling below twenty thousand. The population loss exceeds twenty percent, aging passes four in ten, fiscal stamina is a quarter. These look like separate numbers, yet all of them flow from the same condition — “a cold basin where farming is the mainstay.” Speak of any one alone and the town’s outline stays blurred.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Local Government Finance Survey — Fiscal Capacity Index (MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency)
04 · The dry farming the last tonden-hei opened brought in sheep for the winter
Trace Shibetsu’s making and two histories overlap. One is the starting point: the place where the tonden-hei stationed in Hokkaido entered farthest north, and last. The other is the industrial character in which the cold-climate dry farming those tonden-hei opened brought in sheep from across the sea after the war, to stop the winter seasonal work, and turned into a “sheep town.” The geography of a basin in the upper Teshio River, shut in by winter, gave this town the idle winter labor of dry farming and the answer of sheep to fill it.
Put another way, Shibetsu is a town where the dry farming the last tonden-hei opened brought in sheep for the winter. From the northernmost and last tonden-hei, through the winter seasonal work, the sheep that crossed the sea, and on to a population below twenty thousand — all of it is explained by the single word of geography, “a cold basin in the upper Teshio River.” The tonden-hei’s dry farming, and the sheep that filled its winter, both arise, traced to their source, from the one fact that this basin had idle labor in winter. Across the fields the northernmost and last soldiers opened, sheep that crossed the sea still walk today, filling the winter labor.
Source: Shibetsu City — the northernmost and last tonden-hei (settlement began in 1899 (Meiji 32) when 100 households of the 5th Company, 3rd Battalion of tonden-hei military colonists settled here, the northernmost and last such settlement placed in Hokkaido; the colonists handled northern defense and development, building railways, drainage ditches and other shared facilities; city status in 1954) / Shibetsu City — Suffolkland Shibetsu (aiming at mixed farming that would spare farmers from leaving for seasonal work in Honshu over winter, the city founded a municipal sheep ranch in the Gakuden district in 1966 and the following year, 1967, imported 100 Suffolk sheep from Australia — the start of the “sheep town,” now the city’s symbol as “Suffolkland Shibetsu”) / Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC)
05 · Atlas note — the sheep that kept the winter labor could not change the town’s character
Lay out Shibetsu’s numbers and the indicators of a sheep town the last tonden-hei opened line up at levels rather severe even among Hokkaido’s inland cities: a population loss of some five thousand in twenty years, an aging rate of 41.2%, a household-with-children rate of 14.7%, a fiscal capacity of 0.25. But what I (Atlas) want to look at, in the way of reading behind the balance with an accountant’s eye, is the very reason this town brought in sheep. Dry farming in a cold land leaves labor idle in winter. To keep that winter labor in the town, the farmers brought in sheep from across the sea and, combining fields and sheep, made work even in winter. The history that sheep were brought in not as an ornament of town promotion but out of the necessity of living — “to stop the winter seasonal work” — explains this town’s making well.
The other thing I want to consider is that, even though those sheep were an answer for “wintering over,” this town is still losing population by more than twenty percent. The sheep did keep the winter labor, but they did not go so far as to change the very character of an inland basin where farming is the mainstay. The thinness of jobs has kept pushing the younger generation out of the town. The vividness of bringing a concrete answer — sheep — to the single problem of idle winter labor. And the fact that that vividness could not stop the larger current of population outflow. A fine answer to one problem can fail to reach another current — the sheep town’s numbers quietly teach that reality.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Shibetsu City — the northernmost and last tonden-hei (settlement began in 1899 (Meiji 32) when 100 households of the 5th Company, 3rd Battalion of tonden-hei military colonists settled here, the northernmost and last such settlement placed in Hokkaido; the colonists handled northern defense and development, building railways, drainage ditches and other shared facilities; city status in 1954) / Shibetsu City — Suffolkland Shibetsu (aiming at mixed farming that would spare farmers from leaving for seasonal work in Honshu over winter, the city founded a municipal sheep ranch in the Gakuden district in 1966 and the following year, 1967, imported 100 Suffolk sheep from Australia — the start of the “sheep town,” now the city’s symbol as “Suffolkland Shibetsu”)
Editor’s note: all figures and sources are drawn from official statistics. The prose follows Atlas’s voice, and AI (atlas-handcrafted-reverse-v1 (Daiki 2026-06-02)) handled the shaping of the text. Evaluative or predictive language (such as “a good buy” or “attractive”) is intentionally left out. Revision id: wave27e_