Yubari Onsen

Yubari Onsen is located in Yubari, a former coal mining city in central Hokkaido that holds the melancholy distinction of having declared Japan's most famous municipal bankruptcy in 2007 after decades of population decline following the collapse of the coal industry, becoming a symbol of the broader rural depopulation challenges facing Japan's regional communities. Despite its fiscal crisis, Yubari has become internationally recognized for its beloved Yubari King Melons — the world's most expensive commercially cultivated melons, grown in carefully controlled greenhouses and sometimes auctioned at extraordinary prices — and for the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival that has brought cult cinema to this remote mountain town for decades. The onsen here draw on geothermal resources associated with the area's volcanic and coal-bearing geology, offering mineral bathing in a city whose resilient community spirit and remarkable cultural life have refused to be extinguished by economic adversity.