Sapporo

For other uses, see Sapporo (disambiguation).

Sapporo 札幌市
Designated city
City of Sapporo [1]
Clockwise from top: the central business district at dusk; Sapporo Clock Tower; Sapporo Beer Museum; Hokkaido University; Sapporo Station; Sapporo Dome; and Sapporo TV Tower seen from Odori Park
Flag Seal
Interactive map outlining Sapporo
Location of Sapporo in Hokkaido (Ishikari Subprefecture)
Sapporo Location in Japan
Coordinates: 43°4′N141°21′E / 43.067°N 141.350°E / 43.067; 141.350 Coordinates: 43°4′N141°21′E / 43.067°N 141.350°E / 43.067; 141.350
Country	Japan
Region	Hokkaido
Prefecture	Hokkaido (Ishikari Subprefecture)
Government
• Mayor	Katsuhiro Akimoto
Area
• Total	1,121.26 km2 (432.92 sq mi)
Population  (March 1, 2021)
• Total	1,973,832
• Density	1,760.37/km2 (4,559.3/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+09:00 (JST)
City hall address	2-1-1 Kita-ichijō-nishi, Chūō-ku, Sapporo-shi, Hokkaido 060-8611
Climate	Dfa
Website	www.city.sapporo.jp/city/english
Symbols
Bird	Common cuckoo
Flower	Lily of the valley
Tree	Lilac

See or edit raw graph data.

Demographics

The first census of the population of Sapporo was taken in 1873, when 753 families with a total of 1,785 people were recorded in the town. ^[27] The city has an estimated population of 1,957,914 as of May 31, 2019 and a population density of 1,746 persons per km² (4,500 persons per mi²). The total area is 1,121.26 km² (432.92  sq mi ).

Sapporo
"Sapporo" in kanji

Historical population

Year Pop. ±% 1873 1,785 —     1920 105,182 +5792.5% 1925 149,314 +42.0% 1930 174,179 +16.7% 1935 196,541 +12.8% 1940 206,103 +4.9% 1950 313,850 +52.3% 1955 426,620 +35.9% 1960 523,839 +22.8% 1965 794,908 +51.7% 1970 1,010,123 +27.1%	Year Pop. ±% 1975 1,240,613 +22.8% 1980 1,401,757 +13.0% 1985 1,542,979 +10.1% 1990 1,671,742 +8.3% 1995 1,757,025 +5.1% 2000 1,822,368 +3.7% 2005 1,880,863 +3.2% 2010 1,913,545 +1.7% 2015 1,952,356 +2.0% 2020 1,970,277 +0.9%
Source: Statistics Bureau

Economy

Sapporo MEA

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 comparatively cool climate. ^[28]

The city is also the manufacturing centre of Hokkaido, manufacturing various goods such as food and related products, fabricated metal products, steel, machinery, beverages, and pulp and paper. ^[29] The Sapporo Breweries, founded in 1876, is a major company and employer in the city. ^{[30] [31]}

Hokkaido International Airlines (Air Do) is headquartered in Chūō-ku. ^[32] In April 2004, Air Nippon Network was headquartered in Higashi-ku. ^[33] Other companies headquartered in Sapporo include Crypton Future Media, DB-Soft, Hokkaido Air System, and Royce'.

Greater Sapporo, Sapporo Metropolitan Employment Area (2.3 million people), had a total GDP of US$84.7 billion in 2010. ^{[34] [35]}

In 2014, Sapporo's GDP per capita (PPP) was US$32,446. ^[36]

Culture and entertainment

Music

• 1934 – The International Contemporary Music Festival was held by Akira Ifukube, Fumio Hayasaka, Atsushi Miura, and Isamu Ifukube (30 September)
• 1936 – Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin visited Sapporo
• 1960 – The Sapporo Symphony Orchestra founded
• 1962 – John Cage and David Tudor visited Sapporo
• 1966 – Berliner Philharmoniker with Herbert von Karajan performed Brahms's Symphony No. 2 at Sapporo Shimin Kaikan (April)
• 1974 – Maria Callas last public performance at the Hokkaido Koseinenkin Kaikan (11 November)
• 1986 – The Sapporo Art Park include the Outdoor Stage and Art Hall (27 July)
• 1990 – The Pacific Music Festival (PMF) started
• 1997 – The Sapporo Concert Hall opened
• 2018 – The Sapporo Community Plaza is set to open in October^{[ needs update ]}

Art

• The Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art represents Hokkaido artists like Eien Iwahashi, Kinjiro Kida, Nissho Kanda, Tamako Kataoka, and especially glass objects of Ecole de Paris
• The Hongō Shin Memorial Museum of Sculpture hosts a collection of over 1,800 works by the artist Hongō Shin. ^[37]
• The Sapporo Art Park contains Art museum featuring outdoor installations & a sculpture garden, and the old house of Takeo Arishima.
• The Moerenuma Park including the Glass Pyramid, designed by Isamu Noguchi
• The Migishi Kotaro Museum of Art
• The Hongo Shin Memorial Museum of Sculpture
• The Miyanomori Art Museum
• The Sapporo Odori 500-m Underground Walkway Gallery
• Member of UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a Creative City of Media Arts since 2013
• Sapporo International Art Festival (2014/2017)

Literature

• The Hokkaido Museum of Literature
• Takeo Arishima Residence in Sapporo Art Park
• Junichi Watanabe Museum of Literature

Film

• The Idiot (1951 film) by Akira Kurosawa
• The Northern Museum of Visual Culture
• Theater Kino
• The Sapporo International Short Film Festival and Market

Video games

• Yakuza 5
• Persona 5 Strikers
• Pokémon Diamond and Pearl , Pokémon Platinum and Pokémon Legends: Arceus , Jubilife City, the capital of the Sinnoh region, is based on Sapporo.

Points of interest

Sapporo Beer Museum

Susukino, the entertainment district of Sapporo

• The former Hokkaidō government office building
• The Sapporo Clock Tower
• The Hokkaidō Shrine
• Nishino Shrine
• Hokkaido Museum
• Historical Village of Hokkaido
• Sapporo Buried Cultural Property Center
• The Sapporo City Archive Museum (Former Sapporo Court of Appeal)
• The Edwin Dun Memorial Hall
• The Hokkaido University & Hokkaido University Museum
• The Sapporo Beer Museum & Sapporo Factory
• The Sapporo TV Tower
• The Sapporo Convention Center
• The Sapporo Salmon Museum in Makomanai Park
• The Sunpiazza Aquarium

Sapporo JR Tower adjacent to Sapporo Station. ^[38]

Sapporo Ramen Yokocho and Norubesa (a building with a Ferris wheel) are in Susukino district. The district also has the Tanuki Kōji Shopping Arcade, the oldest shopping mall in the city.

The district of Jōzankei in Minami-ku has many resort hotels with steam baths and onsen.

The Peace Pagoda, one of many such monuments across the world built by the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji to promote and inspire world peace, has a stupa that was built in 1959,^{[ citation needed ]} halfway up Mount Moiwa, to commemorate peace after World War II. It contains some of the ashes of the Buddha that were presented to the Emperor of Japan by Prime Minister Nehru in 1954.^{[ citation needed ]} Another portion was presented to Mikhail Gorbachev by the Nipponzan-Myohoji monk, Junsei Terasawa.^{[ citation needed ]}

Parks/gardens

Odori Park (2018)

• The Odori Park
• The Nakajima Park
• The Maruyama Park is located next to the Hokkaido Shrine and houses the Maruyama Zoo.
• The Moerenuma Park
• The Nishioka Park is a location of rich nature which centers around a pond and consists of marshland and the forest of the Tsukisamu River and its upper river basin. This park also serves as one of the main habitats in Hokkaido for many types of wild birds.
• The Asahiyama Memorial Park offers great views of the city.
• The Hokkaido University Botanical Gardens and The Chizaki Rose Garden
• The Hitsujigaoka Observation Hill has a farm with sheep and attracts visitors with a statue of William S. Clark.

Events/festivals

Dancers in the Yosakoi Sōran Festival

Sapporo Snow Festival

February: the Sapporo Snow Festival The main site is at Odori Park, and other sites include Susukino (known as the Susukino Ice Festival) and Sapporo Satoland. Many of the snow and ice statues are built by members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. ^[39]

May: the Sapporo Lilac Festival. Lilac was brought to Sapporo in 1889 by an American educator, Sarah Clara Smith. At the festival, people enjoy the flowers, wine and live music.

June: the Yosakoi Soran Festival. The sites of the festival are centered on Odori Park and the street leading to Susukino, and there are other festival sites. In the festival, many dance teams dance to music composed based on a Japanese traditional song, "Sōran Bushi". Members of the dancing teams wear special costumes and compete on the roads or stages constructed on the festival sites. In 2006, 350 teams were featured with around 45,000 dancers, and over 1,860,000 people visited the festival. ^[39]

The Sapporo Summer Festival. People enjoy drinking at the beer garden in Odori Park and on the streets of Susukino. This festival consists of a number of fairs such as Tanuki Festival and Susukino Festival. ^[39]

September: the Sapporo Autumn Festival

December: Christmas market in Odori Park, similar to German Christmas markets.

From November through January, many citizens enjoy the Sapporo White Illuminations.

Cuisine

Soup curry

The city is home to Sapporo Brewery, white chocolate biscuits known as 'shiroi koibito' (白い恋人), and also as the birthplace of miso ramen. ^[40] Kouraku Ramen Meitengai, in the Susukino district, is an alley lined with many miso ramen restaurants, since 1951. After its demolition, due to plans for the Sapporo Olympics, the Ganso Sapporo Ramen Yokocho was established in its place. It attracts many tourists throughout the year. ^[40] From the year 1966, a food company named, Sanyo Foods, began to sell instant ramen under the brand name, "Sapporo Ichiban".

Haskap, a local variety of edible honeysuckle, similar to blueberries, is a specialty in Sapporo. Other specialty dishes of Sapporo include; soup curry, a soupy curry made with vegetables and chicken, sometimes other meats too, and jingisukan, a barbecued lamb dish, named after Genghis Khan. Sapporo Sweets, is a confectionery using many ingredients from Hokkaido where there's also the Sapporo Sweets Competition held annually. ^[41] Sapporo is also well known for fresh seafood including; salmon, sea urchin and crab. Crab in particular is famed. Many types of crab are harvested and served seasonally in Sapporo like the Horsehair crab, Snow crab, King crab, and Hanasaki crab with numerous dishes revolving around them. ^[42]

Sports

The Sapporo Dome in winter

The Sapporo Dome was constructed in 2001 and is currently host to the local professional teams, Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (football), and Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (baseball).

ES CON Field Hokkaido (エスコンフィールド北海道, Esukon Fīrudo Hokkaidō), a baseball park under construction in Kitahiroshima, Hokkaido, will become the future home to Nippon Professional Baseball's Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and is scheduled to open in March, 2023.

Sapporo was selected as host to the 5th Winter Olympics, scheduled for February 3 to 12, 1940; however Japan had to cancel the event, consequently handing the decision 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. After considering a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics, Olympic representatives in Sapporo have said that the city is considering a bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics. The city predicts it may cost as much as 456.5 billion yen ($4.3 billion) to host the games and is planning to have 90 percent of the facilities within half an hour of the Olympic village, according to a report published 12 May 2016. The Alpen course would be in Niseko, the world's second-snowiest resort, while the village would be next to the Sapporo Dome, the report said. ^[43] The plans were presented to the Japanese Olympic Committee on 8 November 2016. ^{[44] [45]} In 2002, Sapporo hosted three group matches of the FIFA World Cup at the Sapporo Dome. In 2006, Sapporo hosted some games of the 2006 Basketball World Championship and also for the 2006 Women's Volleyball World Championship. 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. It has been the host city to two Asian Winter Games and hosted the 2017 Asian Winter Games in Obihiro. Sapporo also hosted games during the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Skiing remains a major sport in Sapporo with almost all children skiing as a part of the school curriculum. Okurayama Elementary School is unusual in having its own ski hill and ski jumping hill on the school grounds. Within the city are commercial ski hills including Moiwayama, Bankeiyama, KobaWorld, Sapporo Teine and Fu's.

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 by its nickname "Tsu-Dome", has hosted the Golden Market, a huge flea market event which is usually held twice a year, along with some sports events. The Makomanai Ice Arena, in Makomanai Park, was one of the venues of the Sapporo Olympics in 1972. It was renamed the Makomanai Sekisuiheim Ice Arena in 2007, when Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd., acquired naming rights and renamed the arena after their real estate brand. ^[46] Other large sports venues include the Makomanai Open Stadium, Tsukisamu Dome, Maruyama Baseball Stadium, and the Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center, which hosts the professional basketball team, Levanga Hokkaido.

Toyota Big Air is a major international snowboarding event held annually in Sapporo Dome. As one of the richest events of its kind in the world, it draws many of the world's best snowboarders.

Professional sport teams

Club	Sport	League	Venue	Established
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters	Baseball	Nippon Professional Baseball	Sapporo Dome	2004
Levanga Hokkaido	Basketball	B.League Division 1	Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center, Tsukisamu Dome	2006
Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo	Football (soccer)	J1 League	Sapporo Atsubetsu Park Stadium, Sapporo Dome	1996

• J.League – Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo (J1 in 1998, 2001–2002, 2008, 2012, 2017–present; J2 in 1999–2000, 2003–2007, 2009–2011, 2013–2016).
• NPB – Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in Pacific League

Transportation

Sapporo has one streetcar line, three JR Hokkaido lines, three subway lines and JR Bus, Chuo Bus and other bus lines. Sapporo Subway trains have rubber-tired wheels.

Rapid transit

Sapporo Municipal Subway is the only rubber-tyred metro system in East Asia.

The Sapporo Streetcar is currently the only operational circular tram system in Asia (although a similar tram system in Kaohsiung, Taiwan is planned to begin operation later in 2023).

• Sapporo Municipal Subway
• Sapporo Streetcar
• Mount Moiwa Ropeway
• Teineyama Ropeway

Rail

Sapporo Station

• JR Hokkaido Stations in Sapporo
  • Hakodate Line: (Zenibako) – Hoshimi – Hoshioki – Inaho – Teine – Inazumi Kōen – Hassamu – Hassamu Chūō – Kotoni – Sōen – Sapporo – Naebo – Shiroishi – Atsubetsu – Shinrinkōen – (Ōasa)
  • Chitose Line: Heiwa – Shin Sapporo – Kami Nopporo – (Kita-Hiroshima)
  • Sasshō Line (Gakuentoshi Line): Sōen – Hachiken – Shinkawa – Shinkotoni – Taihei – Yurigahara – Shinoro – Takuhoku – Ainosato Kyōikudai – Ainosato Kōen – (Ishikari Futomi)

Air

The Sapporo area is served by two airports: Okadama Airport, which offers regional flights within Hokkaido, and New Chitose Airport, a larger international airport located in the city of Chitose 30 miles (48 km) away connected by regular rapid trains taking around 40 minutes. The Sapporo-Tokyo route between New Chitose and Haneda is one of the busiest in the world.

Airport shuttle, tour and charter bus service

An airport shuttle bus servicing all hotels in Sapporo operates every day of the year. SkyExpress was founded in 2005 and also provides transport to and from various ski resorts throughout Hokkaido, including Niseko.

Education

Universities

The Sapporo Clock Tower, formerly a part of Hokkaido University in the 19th century

Autumn trees at Hokkaido University

National

• Hokkaido University
• Hokkaido University of Education

See Japanese national university

Public

• Sapporo Medical University
• Sapporo City University

Private

• Sapporo University
• Hokusei Gakuen University
• Hokkai School of Commerce
• Hokkai Gakuen University
• Fuji Women's University
• Sapporo International University
• Tenshi College
• Health Sciences University of Hokkaido
• Sapporo Ōtani University
• Hokkaido Tokai University
• Hokkaido Musashi Women's Junior College
• Hokkaido Bunkyo University
• Hokkaido University of Science
• Koen Gakuen Women's Junior College
• Hokkaido Institute of Technology
• Hokkaido College of Pharmacy
• Sapporo University of Health Sciences
• Japan Health Care College

Primary and secondary schools

Sapporo Odori High School

Sapporo Odori High School provides Japanese-language classes to foreign and Japanese returnee students, and the school has special admissions quotas for these groups. ^[47]

The city has two private international schools:

• Hokkaido International School
• Hokkaido Korean Primary, Middle and High School (North Korean school)

Twin towns – sister cities

Sapporo City Hall (June 2007)

Sapporo has twinning relationships with several cities worldwide. ^{[48] [49]}

• Daejeon, South Korea (since October 2010)
• Denver, CO, United States (since September 1982)
• Munich, Bavaria, Germany (since August 1972)
• Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia (since June 1990)
• Portland, OR, United States (since November 1959)
• Shenyang, Liaoning, China (since November 1980)

See also

• Sapporo Brewery

Notes

1. English pronunciation: /səˈpɔːroʊ,ˈsɑːpoʊroʊ/ , US also /sɑːˈpɔːroʊ/ .

References

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40. 元祖さっぽろラーメン横丁公式サイト.
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External links

• Official Website
• Sapporo Travel
• Unesco Media City Sapporo