Protected local food
Shiriuchi Nira Kita no Hana
しりうちにら北の華
Broad, thick garlic chives from Shiriuchi at the southern tip of Hokkaido. They keep their aroma and sweetness when cooked and ship almost all year.
Key facts
- Registered as a protected name
- 17 November 2025
- Region
- Hokkaido
- Official name in Japanese
- しりうちにら北の華
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 北海道上磯郡知内町及び木古内町
Broad and soft
Nira, or garlic chives, are a staple in gyoza and stir-fries. Shiriuchi nira, branded Kita no Hana, flower of the north, has dark green, broad, thick leaves that are soft to eat. Cooks like that the texture, aroma and flavour hold up after cooking, with a hint of sweetness. They stay fresh a long time and sell above the Tokyo average.
Cool summers, mild winters
Shiriuchi and Kikonai sit at the southern tip of Hokkaido. Summers are cool and winters mild for Hokkaido, and the soil is airy and well drained. Farmers started growing nira here in 1971.
Grown together
Growers chose varieties suited to the area, trained together and cover their greenhouses as a team to control temperature, so they can ship almost all year.
Good to know
- Kikonai Station is the first stop on the Hokkaido Shinkansen after the Seikan Tunnel from Honshu.
- Try nira in gyoza, nira-tama (chives with egg) or a simple liver and chive stir-fry.
Questions travellers ask
What is nira?
Garlic chives, the flat-leaved chive widely used in East Asian cooking.
When is it available?
Almost year round, thanks to greenhouse growing.
Where it comes from
More protected foods from the same area
Crafts from the same area
Heritage stories from the same area
- Coal, steel and port: Hokkaido's northern industrial revolution
- Esashi: the herring town that outshone Edo
- Gyoda: the town of tabi storehouses
- Kitamaebune: the merchant ships that made Japan's port towns rich
- Masuda: a medieval masterpiece of Japan
- Otaru, the heart of Hokkaido: a merchant city saved by its people
- Sacred land of salmon: 10,000 years on the Nemuro Strait
- Takaoka: the castle town that became a merchant town
- The Kamikawa Ainu: living with the kamuy of Daisetsuzan
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.