Shiobetsu Onsen

Shiobetsu Onsen is a hot spring in the Kitami area of Hokkaido, in the Okhotsk Subprefecture of northeastern Hokkaido, whose saline mineral waters provide warming and skin-nourishing bathing in the continental climate of the Kitami Basin, one of the most thermally extreme inhabited zones in Japan where winter temperatures regularly fall to minus twenty degrees Celsius or below. Kitami City is known for its role as a center of the competitive curling sport in Japan, as the Kitami Concerto ice sports facility has produced multiple national champions and international competitors, and the city's position in the heart of the Okhotsk agricultural zone makes it a substantial regional center despite its remote northern location. The saline thermal waters of Shiobetsu Onsen are particularly appreciated during Hokkaido's long and harsh winters when the warming properties of salt-bearing springs help raise core body temperature and maintain the cardiovascular benefits of thermal bathing in one of Japan's most climatically demanding inhabited environments.