Tokachi River
River in Hokkaidō, Japan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tokachi River (十勝川, Tokachi-gawa) is a Class A river in Hokkaidō, Japan.
| Tokachi River Tokachi-gawa, Tokapci | |
|---|---|
 Iwamatsu Dam in Shimizu (September 2007) | |
 | |
  Location within Japan | |
| Native name | |
| Location | |
| Country | Japan |
| State | Hokkaidō |
| Region | Tokachi |
| District | Kamikawa, Nakagawa |
| Municipalities | Shintoku, Toyokoro |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | Shintoku, Hokkaidō, Japan |
| Mouth | Pacific Ocean |
• location | Toyokoro, Hokkaidō, Japan |
• coordinates | 42.6950°N 143.6661°E |
• elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| Length | 156 km (97 mi)[1] |
Basin size | 9,010 km2 (3,480 mi2)[1] |
| Discharge | |
| • average | 71 m3/s (2,500 cu ft/s) |
| Basin features | |
| Population | 340,000[1] |
Etymology
In 1820, the explorer Takeshiro Matsuura (松浦 武四郎) proposed "Tokachi" as the name of the surrounding Tokachi Province, with each character corresponding to a Japanese homophone. The province was named after this river, which in turn was derived from the Ainu language word "tokapci" (トカㇷ゚チ).
Although the exact origins of "tokapci" were unknown, Hidezo Yamada, an Ainu language researcher, proposed these origins:
- tokap-usi ("breast, somewhere")
- toka-o-pci ("swamp, around a place, either")
