
A view of the northeastern part of
Sapporo city
is the fifth-largest city in Japan
by population. It is the capital of HokkaidÅ Prefecture
, located in Ishikari Subprefecture
, and an ordinance-designated city of Japan.
Sapporo is best known outside Japan for hosting the
1972 Winter Olympics, the first ever
held in Asia, and for the annual
Yuki Matsuri in the city,
internationally referred to as the
Sapporo Snow Festival, which draws
more than 2 million tourists from around the world. The city is
also home to
Sapporo Brewery.
History
Early history
Prior to its establishment, the area occupied by Sapporo (known as
the Ishikari Plain) was home to a number of indigenous
Ainu settlements. 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. The settlement's name was taken from the
Ainu language sat poro petsu,
and can be translated as "dry, great river".
In 1868, the officially recognised year celebrated as the 'birth'
of Sapporo, the new
Meiji government
concluded that the existing administrative center of HokkaidÅ,
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
HokkaidÅ.
During 1870-1871,
Kuroda Kiyotaka,
vice-chairman of the HokkaidÅ 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 a
oyatoi gaikokujin and was appointed as a
special advisor to the commission. Construction began around a
park, Odori Koen, which still remains as a green ribbon of
recreational land bisecting the central area of the city. The city
closely followed the American-style
grid
plan with streets at right-angles to form city blocks.
The
continuing expansion of the Japanese into HokkaidÅ continued,
mainly due to migration from the main island of Honshū
immediately to the south, and the prosperity of
HokkaidÅ and particularly its capital grew to the point that the
Development Commission was deemed unnecessary and was abolished in
1882.
Edwin Dun (O-yatoi gaikokujin) 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 married a Japanese woman. He once went back to the
States in 1883 but returned to Japan as a secretary of
government.
William S. Clark (O-yatoi gaikokujin) who was the
president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the
University of
Massachusetts Amherst) came to be the founding vice-president
of
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) , and a railroad between Sapporo and Temiya,
Otaru was laid.
The HÅheikan
, a hotel and reception facility for the very
important person, was erected adjacent to the Odori Park
, which was moved and is now located in Nakajima Park. Two years later, with
the abolition of the Kaitaku-shi, HokkaidÅ 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.
Sapporo,
Hakodate, and Nemuro Prefectures were abolished in 1886, and
HokkaidÅ government office
building
, an American-neo-baroque-style structure with red bricks,
constructed in 1888. The last squad of the Tonden-hei, the soldier
pioneering HokkaidÅ, settled in the place where the area of Tonden
in Kita-ku,
Sapporo
is currently located.
Sapporo-ku has 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. The "ku"
(district) enforced from 1899 was an autonomy which was a little
bigger than towns, and smaller than cities. In HokkaidÅ at that
time, Hakodate-ku and Otaru-ku also existed.
Modern History (20th century)
In 1907,
the Tohoku Imperial
University was established in Sendai
Miyagi
Prefecture
, and
Sapporo Agricultural
College was controlled by the University. Parts of
neighbouring villages including Sapporo Village, Naebo Village,
Kami Shiroishi Village, and districts where Tonden-hei has settled,
were integrated into Sapporo-ku in 1910.
The
Sapporo Street Car was opened
in 1918, and HokkaidÅ Imperial University was established in
Sapporo-ku, as the fifth
Imperial
University in Japan. The another railroad operated in Sapporo,
JÅzankei Railroad was also opened, which was ultimately abolished
in 1969.
In 1922, the new city system was announced by the Tokyo government,
and Sapporo-ku was officially transferred to the Sapporo City. The
Sapporo Municipal Bus System was started in 1930. In 1937, Sapporo
was chosen as the site of
1940
Winter Olympics, but due to the outbreak of
Second Sino-Japanese War, this was
canceled in the next year.
Maruyama Town was integrated into a part of
the ChÅ«Å-ku in 1940, and the Okadama Airport
was constructed in 1942. The first
Sapporo Snow Festival was held in
1950. In the same year, adjacent Shiroishi Village was integrated
into Sapporo City, rendered as a part of Shiroishi-ku, and
Atsubetsu-ku. In 1955, Kotoni Town, the entire Sapporo Village, and
Shinoro Village were merged into Sapporo, becoming a part of the
current ChÅ«Å-ku, Kita-ku, Higashi-ku, Nishi-ku, and Teine-ku. The
expansion of Sapporo continued, with the merger of Toyohira Town in
1961, and Teine Town in 1967, each became as a part of Toyohira-ku,
Kiyota-ku, and Teine-ku.
The ceremony commemorating 100th anniversary of the foundation of
Sapporo and HokkaidÅ was held in 1968. The
Sapporo Municipal Subway system was
inaugurated in 1971, which made Sapporo the fourth city having
subway system in Japan. On February 3 to 13, 1972,
1972 Winter Olympics was held, which
was the first Winter Olympics held in Asia, and on April 1 of the
same year, Sapporo was designated as one of the
cities designated by
government ordinance, and seven wards were established. The
last ever public performance by the opera singer,
Maria Callas, was in Sapporo at the Hokkaido
Koseinenkin Kaikan, on 11 November 1974. The Sapporo Municipal
Subway was expanded when the TÅzai line was started its operation
in 1976, and TÅho line was opened in 1988. In 1989, Atsubetsu-ku
and Teine-ku were separated from Shiroishi-ku and Nishi-ku. Annual
events in Sapporo were started, such as the Pacific Music Festival
in 1990, and Yosakoi SÅran Festival in 1992. A professional
football club,
Consadole Sapporo,
was established in 1996. In 1997, Kiyota-ku was separated from
Toyohira-ku. In the same year,
HokkaidÅ Takushoku Bank, a HokkaidÅ
based bank that placed its headquarter in Odori, went
bankrupt.
Modern History (21st century)
In 2001,
the construction of the Sapporo Dome
was completed, and in the year of 2002, the Dome
hosted 3 games during the 2002 FIFA
World Cup, Germany vs Saudi Arabia, Argentina vs England and
Italy vs Ecuador, all of which were in the first round. The
present mayor of Sapporo, Fumio Ueda, was elected as the mayor for
the first time in 2003.
Sapporo became the home to a baseball team,
Hokkaido Nippon Ham
Fighters, in 2004, which won the championship in 2006, and the
victory parade was held on Ekimae-DÅri (a street in front of
Sapporo
Station
) in February 2007.
The
34th G8 summit took place in TÅyako
in 2008, and a number of people including
antiglobalists and leftists marched to protest G8 summit in the
heart of the city. Police officers were gathered in Sapporo
from all over Japan, and the news reported that 4 people were
arrested in the G8 demonstration.
The HokkaidÅ Shinkansen line, which is
currently under construction to expand its line to Hakodate through the Seikan Tunnel
, is planned to link to Sapporo.
Geography
Sapporo
is a city located in the southwest part of Ishikari Plain and the
alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary stream of the
Ishikari
River
. Roadways in the urban district are laid to
make
grid plan road. The western and
southern part of Sapporo are occupied by a number of mountains
including Mount Teine, Maruyama, and Mount Moiwa, as well as a lot
of rivers including the Ishikari River, Toyohira River, and Sousei
River.
Sapporo
has many parks, and among them, Odori Park
is located in the heart of the City and is one of
the places that a number of annual events and festivals are held
throughout the year. Moerenuma Park
is also one of the largest parks in Sapporo, and
was constructed under the plan of Isamu
Noguchi, a Japanese-American artist and landscape
architect.
Neighbouring cities are Ishikari, Ebetsu, Kitahiroshima, Eniwa, Chitose, Otaru, Date, and towns are TÅbetsu
, Kimobetsu
, KyÅgoku
, and a village is Akaigawa
.
Climate
Sapporo has a
humid
continental climate (
Koppen Dfb), with a
wide range of temperature between the summer and winter. Summers
are generally hot but not humid, and winters quite cold and snowy.
It snows a lot in winter, enabling it to hold events and festivals
with snow statues and objects. Boasting 630 cm
(248 inches) on average
æ°—è±¡åº | 平年値(年・月ã”ã¨ã®å€¤ï¼‰, it is one of the few
metropolises in the world with such heavy
snowfall.http://www.city.sapporo.jp/kokusai/handbook/file/en-01.pdf
The city's annual average precipitation is around 1,100 mm
(43 inches), and the mean annual temperature is 8.5°C
(47°F).
Wards
Sapporo has ten :
(purple) |
(blue) |
(skyblue) |
(orange-red) |
(green) |
(red) |
(orange) |
(brown) |
(forest green) |
(pink) |
Color shows the location of each ku
in the map
above.
Economy
The tertiary sector dominates Sapporo's industry. Major industries
include information technology, retail, and tourism, as Sapporo is
a destination for winter sports and events and summer activities
due to its cool climate.
The city is also the manufacturing center of Hokkaido,
manufacturing various goods such as food and related products,
fabricated metal products, steel, machinery, beverages, and pulp
and paper.
Hokkaido International
Airlines (Air Do) is headquartered in ChÅ«Å-ku
. In April 2004 Air Nippon Network was headquartered in
Higashi-ku
.
Culture and entertainment
Sapporo is one of the popular tourist attractions in Japan, and as
of 2006, the annual number of tourists had reached 14,104,000,
which was an increase of 5.9% over the previous year (13,323,000 in
2005) . 2006 was also the first year for Sapporo when the number of
tourists exceeded 14 million, in its history of tourism.
Cuisine

The Soup Curry
Sapporo is known as the birthplace of Miso
Ramen, a
rÄmen noodle using
miso, and Sapporo Ramen is also widely known.
The Kouraku Ramen Meitengai, an alley lined with many ramen
restaurants, was established in 1951 in Susukino district, and
after its demolition due to plans for the
Sapporo Olympics, the Ganso Sapporo Ramen
Yokocho was established in the same place. It currently attracts
many tourists throughout the year. From the year 1966, a food
company named Sanyo Foods began to sell instant ramens under the
brand name "
Sapporo Ichiban". In
2001, Sapporo Ramen was listed as one of the Hokkaido Heritage
along with other ramens in Hokkaido such as Asahikawa Ramen and
Hakodate Ramen. On October 1, 2004, The Sapporo Ramen Republic, a
theme park focused on rÄmens, was opened at the 10th floor of the
Sapporo ESTA, a commercial complex located in front of the Sapporo
Station.
Soup Curry, a liquid
curry with vegetables and
rice, is also one of the specialties in Sapporo, and currently
plenty of soup curry restaurants are located in the cities and
towns in Hokkaido. Sapporo Sweets, a confectionery using many
ingredients from Hokkaido, is also popular, and the Sapporo Sweets
Competition is held annually.
A lamb
barbecue style dish called
jingisukan (named for
Ghengis Khan) is another popular local
specialty.
Sapporo is also famed for fresh seafood,
salmon,
sea urchin and
crab in particular. It is also noted for
Haskup, a local variety of
blueberry.
Entertainment and performing arts
The
Sapporo
Concert Hall Kitara
is the main musical venue in Sapporo, located in
Nakajima Park in Chuo-ku. It is home to the Sapporo Symphony
Orchestra, a local professional orchestra organized in 1961, and
their regular concerts are held in this hall. The open-air stage in
Sapporo Artpark is another one of the music venues in Sapporo. The
Pacific Music Festival (PMF), an event started with the idea of
Leonard Bernstein in 1990, is held
in both places. The Sapporo Artpark, located in Minami-ku, also
contains
public arts, an art museum, and
the old house of
Takeo Arishima.
Other art museums in Sapporo include The Hokkaido Museum of Modern
Art, the Sapporo Museum of Sculpture, and the Migishi Kotaro Museum
of Art, Hokkaido. The Hokkaido Museum of Literature, located in
Nakajima Park, has hosted many exhibitions, seminars, and other
educational activities. The Sapporo Convention Center is located in
Shiroishi-ku, and a number of forums and events are held in the
building. The Sapporo Salmon Museum is located in Minami-ku, and
displays mainly materials related to the ecology of salmon. The
Sunpiazza Aquarium is located close to the Sapporo Science Center
in Atsubetsu-ku.
Points of interest
A lot of historical buildings, as well as shopping malls and parks,
are located in Sapporo, and draw many tourists in every year.
Historic
landmarks include the Former HokkaidÅ government office
building
, the Sapporo Clock Tower
, the Hokkaido Shrine
(HokkaidŠJingū), and the Sapporo TV
Tower
. The
Sapporo
Factory was a former
brewery of the
Sapporo Beer, and is currently a
huge shopping mall with many restaurants, offices, and the
multiplex movie theatres.
Another
former brewery of the Sapporo Beer is the Sapporo Beer
Museum
, which is currently a part of the Sapporo Garden
Park, and houses the . The Sapporo City Archive Museum, The
Edwin Dun Memorial Hall, and some old
buildings in the
Hokkaido
University are also historically important in Sapporo, and each
was listed in the Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of
Japan.
The
Sapporo JR
Tower
, a complex building houses the Tower 38 and
department store, is located adjacent to the Sapporo
Station
. Being close to the main station of Sapporo,
the Sapporo JR Tower has been visited by many tourists, and the
number of visitors of the Tower 38, the tower with an
observation deck, recorded 311,815 in 2006.
The
Sapporo TV
Tower
, located at the eastern end of the Odori Park, is
one of more modern architectures, and has also an observation deck
viewing the entire Odori Park and Sapporo City. Susukino is a district having the main nightlife
scene in Sapporo, Sapporo Ramen Yokocho, Norubesa (a building with
a huge
Ferris wheel) which are located
in this district as well as many restaurants, nightclubs, bars, and
adult entertainments. The district also has the Tanuki Koji
Shopping Arcade, the oldest shopping mall in the City. In
Minami-ku, the district of JÅzankei is a site that has many hotels
with steam baths and hot springs, and that many visitors also have
visited.
Sapporo also offers many parks and gardens.
The Odori Park
houses buildings such as the Sapporo TV Tower, and
hosts many events including Yosakoi Soran Festival, Sapporo Lilac
Festival, Sapporo White Illumination, and the Sapporo Snow
Festival. In the Nakajima Park, there are some
landmarks including HÅheikan
, an old hotel building moved from the Odori Park,
and the Sapporo Concert Hall Kitara. The Maruyama Park is
located next to the Hokkaido Shrine, and houses the Maruyama Zoo.
The
Moerenuma
Park
is located in Higashi-ku, and houses many open-air
art compositions including the Glass Pyramid, planned by Isamu
Noguchi. One of the gardens in Sapporo, the Chizaki Rose
Garden provides various kinds of
roses, and the
Hokkaido
University Botanical Gardens has also many types of plants and
historically important buildings. The
Hitsujigaoka observation hill
has a farm with sheep, and attracts visitors with a statue of
William S. Clark.
Events
Dancers in the Yosakoi SÅran Festival
In February, the
Sapporo Snow
Festival is annually held.
The main site is the Odori Park, and other
sites include Susukino (known as the Susukino Snow Festival), and
the Sapporo
Satoland
. Once Makomanai area in Minami-ku was one of
the festival sites, but it was abolished and moved to the Satoland
site in 2006. Many of the snow and ice statues in the sites are
built by the armies of
Japan Ground Self-Defense
Force. In 2006, the number of visitors at the Sapporo Snow
Festival marked 1,985,000 in total.
Every June, the Yosakoi Soran Festival is held. The sites of the
festival are centered in the Odori Park and the street leading to
Susukino, but other festival sites also exist. In the festival,
many dance teams dance to their music which are composed based on a
Japanese traditional song,
SÅran
Bushi. Members of the teams wear special costumes, and compete
their dancing skills on the roads or stages constructed on the
festival sites. In 2006, 350 teams were organized with around
45,000 dancers, and over 1,860,000 people visited at the festival
sites.
During the summer, the Sapporo Summer Festival takes place in the
heart of the city, and people enjoy drinking beer in the
beer gardens constructed in the Odori Park and
on the streets of Susukino district. This festival consists of a
number of fairs such as Tanuki Festival and Susukino Festival as
well as the Odori Park site.
Sports
The
Sapporo
Dome
was constructed in 2001, and currently is the host
to the local football team, Consadole
Sapporo, and the baseball team, HokkaidÅ Nippon Ham
Fighters. Once Sapporo was selected to be the host of
the 5th Winter Olympics scheduled on February 3 to 12, 1940, but
Japan had to give the Games back to the IOC
, after the
Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937. In 1972, Sapporo
hosted the 11th
Winter
Olympics.
Some structures built for Olympic events
remain in use today, including the ski jumps at Miyanomori and
Okurayama
. In 2002, Sapporo hosted three group matches
of the FIFA World Cup at the
Sapporo
Dome
.In 2006, Sapporo hosted some games of the
FIBA World
Championships, and in 2007, Sapporo hosted the
FIS Nordic World Ski
Championships at the Sapporo Dome, Miyanomori ski jump,
Okurayama ski jump, and the Shirahatayama cross country
course.
Many sports stadiums and domes are located in Sapporo, and some of
them have been designated as venues of sports competitions.
The
Sapporo
Community Dome
, also known as its nickname "Tsu-Dome", has hosted
to the Golden Market, a huge flea market
event which is usually held twice in a year, along with some sports
events. The Makomanai Ice Arena
, located in the Makomanai Park, was used to be one
of the venues of Sapporo Olympics in 1972. It was renamed to
the "Makomanai Sekisuiheim Ice Arena" in 2007, when a real estate
company, Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd., acquired its
naming rights and renamed the arena after
their brand name of the real estate.
Other large sports
venues include the Makomanai Open Stadium
, the Tsukisamu Green Dome
, the Maruyama Stadium
, and the Hokkaido
Prefectural Sports Center
.
Professional sport teams
Club |
Sport |
League |
Venue |
Established |
Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters |
Baseball |
Pacific League |
Sapporo Dome |
2004 |
Consadole Sapporo |
Football |
J. League (J1, top division) |
Sapporo Atsubetu Park Studium,
Sapporo Dome,
Muroran Irie Studium,
Nishi-ga-Oka Studium |
1996 |
Rera Kamuy Hokkaido |
Basketball |
Japan Basketball League |
Tsukisamu ALPHA COURT Dome |
2007 |
Sapporo Ambitious |
Baseball |
Professional baseball Masters League |
Sapporo Dome |
2001 |
Sports clubs
Demographics
The city has an estimated
population of
1,890,561 as of March 2007 and a
density of 1,686 persons per km² (4,367
persons per mi²). The total area is 1,121.12 km²
(432.87 mi²).
Transportation
.Sapporo has one streetcar line, three
JR HokkaidÅ lines, three subway
lines and JR-bus, Chuo-bus and other bus lines. Sapporo Subway
trains have rubber-tyred wheels.
Rapid Transit
Rail
- JR HokkaidÅ Stations in Sapporo
- Hakodate Line: (Zenibako) - Hoshimi - Hoshioki - Inaho - Teine
- Inazui KÅen -Hassamu - Hassamu ChūŠ- Kotoni - SÅen - Sapporo -
Naebo - Shiroishi - Heiwa - Atsubetsu - Shinrin kÅen - (Åasa)
- Chitose Line: Heiwa - Shin Sapporo -Kami Nopporo -
(Kita-Hiroshima)
- Gakuentoshi Line: SÅen - Hachiken - Shinkawa - Shinkotoni -
Taihei - Yurigahara - Shinoro - Takuhoku - Ainosato KyÅikudai -
Ainosato KÅen - (Ishikari Futomi)
Air
The
Sapporo area is served by two airports: Okadama Airport
, which serves regional flights within Hokkaido, and
New Chitose
Airport
, a larger, international airport located in the
city of Chitose.
Universities
Public
See Japanese national
university
Private
Sister cities

Sapporo City Hall (June 2007)
Sapporo has relationships with several cities worldwide.
The Sapporo Sister Cities Association
The Sapporo Sister Cities Association was founded in April 1986 to
foster friendly relations between Sapporo and its sister cities by
promoting a wide range of exchange activities. Specifically, the
association organizes various exchanges related to education,
science, the arts, economics, technology and sports.
The Sapporo Sister Cities Association Office is in
Sapporo
International Communication Plaza Foundation[345903].
See also
Sources
- Hometown Homepage - Look back a bit
-
http://www.city.sapporo.jp/minami/yawa/mokuji/1furusatono/furusatono.html
- Sutherland, Robert Maria Callas Diaries of a
Friendship London Constable 1999 p265 ISBN 0094787905
- lawsuit against the bankruptcy of the Takushoku
Bank
- CBS News World - July 5, 2008
- Sapporo City Official Homepage - the outline of
Sapporo
- " 会社概è¦." Hokkaido International
Airlines. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
- " 会社概è¦." Air Nippon Network. April 6,
2004. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
- Tourism Statistics of Sapporo, 2006, p.11 (pdf
file)
- Ganso Ramen Yokocho, History of Sapporo
Ramen
- Sapporo, the sweets republic
- Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in
Sapporo
- Tourism Statistics of Sapporo, 2006, p.35 (pdf
file)
- Tourism Statistics of Sapporo, 2006, p.29 (pdf
file)
- Makomanai Sekisuiheim Ice Arena Homepage
- æœå¹Œå¸‚ - å›½éš›äº¤æµ - 姉妹都市
- Sister Cities | International Community
Bureau
External links