  thumb|city central   is a japanese city in kushiro subprefecture, hokkaido, japan. it is the capital city of kushiro subprefecture, as well as the most populous city in eastern hokkaido. ==history== an imperial decree in july 1899 established kushiro as an open port for trading with the united states and the united kingdom.us department of state. (1906). a digest of international law as embodied in diplomatic discussions, treaties and other international agreements (john bassett moore, ed.), vol. 5, p. 759. kushiro has been an important port because it is more reliably ice-free during winter than alternative russian far east warm-water ports such as petropavlovsk-kamchatsky or other ports in hokkaido such as hakodate, which occasionally do freeze for short periods due to the lower salinity of the sea of japan. for this reason, kushiro was considered a valuable target for the tsars during the russo-japanese wars, but it only became a really important port during the 1920s with the growth of commercial fishing, for which its reliable freedom from ice reduced costs.port of kushiro on october 11, 2005 the town of akan, from akan district, and the town of onbetsu, from shiranuka district, was merged into kushiro. in 2008 the city had an estimated population of 189,539 and a total area of , giving a [[po
Cities_in_Hokkaido Populated_coastal_places_in_Japan Port_settlements_in_Japan