Ashibetsu Onsen
- Location
- Ashibetsu, Hokkaido, Japan, Japan
- Water type
- sodium chloride
- Temperature
- 41 °C
- pH
- 7.3
Water profile
Relaxing — deep, immediate muscle release.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Dense, salty water — you float without effort.
Ashibetsu Onsen is situated in Ashibetsu, a former coal mining city in the Sorachi Subprefecture of central Hokkaido, home to one of Japan's most eerily fascinating abandoned attractions: the Canadian World theme park (known as Mapleland), a replica of Prince Edward Island built in 1990 to capitalize on Japanese fascination with the Anne of Green Gables stories, which drew hundreds of thousands of visitors before falling into disuse and decay after the city's bankruptcy in the 1990s, leaving behind a haunting ghost park of weathered gabled houses and overgrown gardens in the Hokkaido forest. The contrast between this atmospheric ruin and the surrounding wild Hokkaido mountain scenery has made Ashibetsu an unexpected destination for urban explorers and photographers. The onsen here provide genuine mineral bathing in a city whose surreal heritage of coal mining, Canadian dreams, and quiet rural revival makes it one of Hokkaido's most intriguing and least-visited destinations.