湯別 ゆべつ Yubetsu
Suttsu, Shiribeshi region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Yu-pet, Yu-o-pet
The hot spring at Yubetsu was known from Ainu times, opened for bathing in the Bunkyū years, and redrilled at its present site in the early Heisei years.
Location
42.7519, 140.2855 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 湯別橋. Open in OpenStreetMap
Readings in the place-name tables: ユペッ Yu-pet
Referents
- settlement The Yubetsu district of Suttsu, with the hot-spring bathhouse Yubetsu-no-yu.
- river The stream of the hot spring, the Yu-no-sawa River.
Analyses
yu-pet
ユベツ ‘hot-spring river’ received readingProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The name reads straight off as it stands.
yu and pet are dictionary words in the proposed senses, the compound is ordinary, and no source contests it.
yu-o-pet
ユオベツ ‘river with a hot spring in it’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
高橋蝦夷図 writes ユヲーベツ, which may point to this shape. The author raises the same possibility for Yūnai on the Raiden coast at Iwanai, which can also be read yu-un-nay 'stream with a hot spring', with a transitive verb inserted.
The reading rests on one map's spelling, and the author states it as a possibility.
Attestations
- ユヲーベツ map Edo period 高橋蝦夷図zenibako_trek…
- 湯の沢川 document 1856
この小川、半里ばかり上に温泉あるよしや
Matsuura Takeshirō in Ansei 3; the spring was known long before it was opened. The first bath was made in the Bunkyū years, seven or eight years later. The present source at Yubetsu-no-yu was drilled in the early Heisei years.
zenibako_trek…
Related names
- 湯内 ゆうない — A stream on the Raiden coast at Iwanai, read the same way. zenibako_trek…