日本北海道的小镇新冠町有官员于近日宣布，由于该地区出生率持续下降，他们将在下月通过因特网拍卖辖区内的四所小学。这个只有1.1万人口的小镇共有九所学校，去年关闭了其中七所。其中有三所分别转为办公楼、疗养院以及跑马场，而余下的四所至今尚未找到买主。当地官员表示要将这四所学校放到日本最大的拍卖网站去寻找买主。日本近年来一直受出生率下降的困扰。年轻人进城务工，老年人在家中看护田地，使得人口下降这个问题在农村地区尤为严重。

A small Japanese town with a falling birthrate plans to auction¹ off four primary schools on the Internet, according to a local official.

Niikappu, on the northern island of Hokkaido, plans to start the auction next month on the Yahoo! Japan online auction site, said Hidenori Tsutsumi, who is in charge of the auction.

The farming and fishing town of 11,000 people last year closed seven of its nine schools.

Three were turned into a corporate² office, a nursing home and a horse-racing centre but the town was unable to find buyers for the others.

"It became necessary to consolidate³ the schools due to the falling birthrate," a municipal statement said.

With no immediate⁴ buyers for the other four, the town said it "decided⁵ to list the schools on Japan's largest auction site".

Three of the four schools up for sale boast spacious⁶ teachers' residences and swimming pools. The asking prices range from 21.8 million to 67.4 million yen⁷ (220,500 to 682,000 dollars), the town said.

No local population statistics were immediately available. But Japan has been struggling with a falling birthrate, which is especially acute in rural areas where the older population has been left to till the lands while the younger population has moved to the cities.

Vocabulary:

asking prices: 卖方开价，要价