Bifuka Onsen

Bifuka Onsen is a hot spring in Bifuka Town, Nakagawa County, Hokkaido, in the remote Teshio Mountains of northern Hokkaido, a sparsely populated region of extensive forest, wetland, and agricultural land where the vast natural landscape of Japan's northernmost island is experienced at its most undisturbed. Bifuka, meaning beautiful deep valley in Ainu, reflects the indigenous heritage of Hokkaido whose Ainu people inhabited these mountains and rivers long before Japanese settlement, and the name preserves a connection to the pre-modern ecological and cultural landscape of the region. The hot spring provides essential bathing facilities to the small but resilient farming community of Bifuka Town, where the geothermal resources beneath the Teshio highlands offer a natural thermal amenity in one of Japan's most remote and least-visited northern districts.