Land prices are soaring in this town in western Hokkaido while the area’s famed ski hills continue to attract hordes of ...

Local officials around one of Japan’s most popular ski resort areas are grappling with a growing fiscal problem: how to tax a ...

Sapporo – Until the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Hokkaido’s Niseko and the surrounding area enjoyed an unprecedented building boom. New international luxury hotels sprang up, and wealthy private ...

KUTCHAN – In the small town of Kutchan, near the internationally renowned Niseko ski slopes in Japan, a barren field once planted with potatoes has become a flash point for a national conflict over ...

A menu listing a seafood rice bowl priced at 12,000 yen, among other dishes, is seen at a restaurant in the Niseko Hirafu Area, in the town of Kutchan, Hokkaido, Oct. 29, 2025. (Mainichi/Ayako ...

A foreign man in his 20s was stabbed in the back on a street in Kutchan town, Hokkaido, on Saturday night. According to police, a passerby called 119 at around 9 p.m. and said that "someone was ...

Residents are protesting a planned housing facility for foreign workers, exposing the conflict between Japan’s need for labor and anxieties over immigration. The economy of Kutchan, a town on Japan’s ...