Assabu Town

This camera covers Assabu, a small farming town in Hokkaido's Hiyama subprefecture, inland from the Sea of Japan coast and not far from Hakodate. Its economy centers on rice and potato farming in the valley of the Assabu River.

Unlike the site's street-level camera in the same town, this view takes in the broader town and surrounding countryside, useful for a general sense of weather and seasonal conditions in this part of southern Hokkaido.

Because the frame takes in fields rather than buildings, the farming year is the clearest thing this camera shows. Bare brown soil gives way to planting in spring, the valley fills in green through summer, harvest strips it back in autumn, and by December the whole view is white. For checking conditions in southern Hokkaido away from the coast, that progression is more useful than any single day's picture.