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Sister City Exchange (Nanae-Town, Hokkaido Prefecture)

Miki-Town and Nanae-Town (Hokkaido Prefecture) became Sister Cities on October 11th, 1999. Nanae-Town and Miki-Town share a number of similarities - for example, they are suburb cities of their prefectural capitals (Nanae-Town being situated about 16 km north of Hakodate City) and their populations (Nanae-Town, about 29,000) are about the same. As this program aims to educate people, and develop the culture of our cities, exchange takes place within an extensive range of fields such as education, sports, or local industries and economy.

The Sister City Agreement

- 11th October, 1999 -

Through our exchanges across many fields (e.g. education, sports, industry and economy) we will keep both culture and people as core values so that both towns shall contribute to the prosperity and the happiness of their citizens. We hope that this may contribute to the development of friendly relations between our town's citizens forever.

The above is the signed agreement shared between Nanae-Town and Miki-Town.

Outline of Nanae-Town

Nanae-Town occupies an area of around 216.61 square-kilometers, and is in the southern part of Hokkaido on Oshima Peninsula - about 16 kilometers from Hakodate City, the main entrance to Hokkaido.  The city has a mild climate and rich soils as well as being the origin of western-style agricultural practices (the foundation of the Hokkaido reclamation) in Japan. In addition, it has many scienic views with historic value such as Shuho Komagatake, Onuma Park and the historical highway "AKAMATSU KAIDO (the Japanese red pine highway). "

Progress of exchange with Nanae-Town

We celebrated the fifth anniversary of our Sister City in October 2004 and every year has seen substantial development in our friendship. Various exchanges are carried out in a wide range of fields such as citizen organizations, agricultural associations and the chambers of commerce and industry in both towns as such the tie between our towns is being strengthened.  Especially strong links are forged during the mutual exchange of schoolchildren, which has been carried out since 1998. The children have a chance to make many friends through homestay and extracurricular activities, often sharing touching experiences and deepening friendships.

Miki-Town will partly subsidize travel expenses for citizens of Miki who travel to Nanae-Town.

Miki-Town will partly subsidize the expenses within its budget to organizations in the town wishing to promote exchange with our Sister City, Nanae-Town.

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