Sapporo

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For other uses, see Sapporo (disambiguation).

Sapporo

札幌市

Designated city

City of Sapporo[1]

Left to right, top to bottom: Mount Moiwa night view, Sapporo

Clock Tower, Sapporo Beer Museum, Sapporo Station, Hokkaido
University, Sapporo Dome, and Sapporo TV Tower seen from Odori
Park

Flag
 Seal

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Location of Sapporo in Hokkaido (Ishikari Subprefecture)

Sapporo

Location in Japan

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Coordinates:  43°4′N 141°21′ECoordinates:  43°4′N 141°21′E

Country Japan

Region Hokkaido

Prefecture Hokkaido (Ishikari Subprefecture)

Government

 • Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto

Area

 • Total 1,121.26 km2 (432.92 sq mi)

Population

 (Feb 1, 2020)

 • Total 1,970,277

 • Density 1,800/km2 (4,600/sq mi)

Time zone UTC+09:00 (JST)

City hall address 2-1-1 Kita-ichijō-nishi, Chūō-ku, Sapporo-shi,

Hokkaido
060-8611
 Website www.city.sapporo.jp

Symbols

Bird Common cuckoo

Flower Lily of the valley

Tree Lilac

Sapporo

"Sapporo" in kanji

Japanese name

Kanji 札幌

Hiragana さっぽろ

Katakana サッポロ

showTranscriptions

Sapporo (札幌市, Sapporo-shi) is the fifth largest city in Japan, and the largest city on the

northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is the capital city of Hokkaido Prefecture and Ishikari
Subprefecture. Sapporo lies in the southwest of Hokkaido, within the alluvial fan of the Toyohira
River, which is a tributary stream of the Ishikari. Sapporo is considered the cultural, economical,
and political center of Hokkaido.
As with most of Hokkaido, the Sapporo area was settled by the indigenous Ainu people,
beginning over 15,000 years ago. Starting in the late 19th century, Sapporo saw increasing
settlement by Japanese migrants. Sapporo hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics, the first Winter
Olympics ever held in Asia, and the second Olympic games held in Japan after the 1964
Summer Olympics. The Sapporo Dome hosted three games during the 2002 FIFA World
Cup and two games during the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
The annual Sapporo Snow Festival draws more than 2 million tourists from abroad.[2] Other
notable sites include the Sapporo Beer Museum, which is the only beer museum in Japan[3], and
the Sapporo TV Tower located in Odori Park. It is home to Hokkaido University, just north
of Sapporo Station. The city is served by Okadama Airport, and New Chitose Airport in
nearby Chitose.

Contents

Etymology[edit]
Sapporo's name was taken from Ainuic "sat poro pet" (サッ・ポロ・ペッ), which can be
translated as the "dry, great river", a reference to the Toyohira River.[4]

History[edit]
Early history[edit]
Before its establishment, the area occupied by Sapporo (known as the Ishikari Plain) was home
to a number of indigenous Ainu settlements.[5] In 1866, at the end of the Edo period, construction
began on a canal through the area, encouraging a number of early settlers to establish Sapporo
village.[6]
In 1868, the officially recognized year celebrated as the "birth" of Sapporo, the
new Meiji government concluded that the existing administrative center of Hokkaido, which at
the time was the port of Hakodate, was in an unsuitable location for defense and further
development of the island. As a result, it was determined that a new capital on the Ishikari Plain
should be established. The plain itself provided an unusually large expanse of flat, well drained
land which is relatively uncommon in the otherwise mountainous geography of Hokkaido.
During 1870–1871, Kuroda Kiyotaka, vice-chairman of the Hokkaido Development Commission
(Kaitaku-shi), approached the American government for assistance in developing the land. As a
result, Horace Capron, Secretary of Agriculture under President Ulysses S. Grant, became
an oyatoi gaikokujin and was appointed as a special advisor to the commission. Construction
began around Odori Park, which still remains as a green ribbon of recreational land bisecting
the central area of the city. The city closely followed a grid plan with streets at right-angles to
form city blocks.
The continuing expansion of the Japanese into Hokkaido continued, mainly due to migration
from the main island of Honshu immediately to the south, and the prosperity of Hokkaido and
particularly its capital grew to the point that the Development Commission was deemed
unnecessary and was abolished in 1882.
Edwin Dun came to Sapporo to establish sheep and cattle ranches in 1876. He also
demonstrated pig raising and the making of butter, cheese, ham and sausage. He was married
twice, to Japanese women. He once went back to the US in 1883 but returned to Japan as a
secretary of government.
William S. Clark, who was the president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now
the University of Massachusetts Amherst), came to be the founding vice-president of
the Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaido University) for only eight months from 1876 to
1877. He taught academic subjects in science and lectured on the Bible as an "ethics" course,
introducing Christian principles to the first entering class of the College.
In 1880, the entire area of Sapporo was renamed as "Sapporo-ku" (Sapporo Ward),[7] and a
railroad between Sapporo and Temiya, Otaru was laid. That year the Hōheikan, a hotel and
reception facility for visiting officials and dignitaries, was erected adjacent to the Odori Park. It
was later moved to Nakajima Park where it remains today. Two years later, with the abolition of
the Kaitaku-shi, Hokkaidō was divided into three prefectures: Hakodate, Sapporo, and Nemuro.
The name of the urban district in Sapporo remained Sapporo-ku, while the rest of the area in
Sapporo-ku was changed to Sapporo-gun. The office building of Sapporo-ku was also located in
the urban district.[7]
Sapporo, Hakodate, and Nemuro Prefectures were abolished in 1886, and Hokkaidō
government office building, an American-neo-baroque-style structure with red bricks,
constructed in 1888. The last squad of the Tondenhei, the soldiers pioneering Hokkaido, settled
in the place where the area of Tonden in Kita-ku, Sapporo is currently located. Sapporo-ku
administered surrounding Sapporo-gun until 1899, when the new district system was
announced. After that year, Sapporo-ku was away from the control of Sapporo-gun.[7] The "ku"
(district) enforced from 1899 was an autonomy which was a little bigger than towns, and smaller
than cities. In Hokkaido at that time, Hakodate-ku and Otaru-ku also existed.[8]