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Hokkaido Region

This region is formed by Hokkaido Island — the northernmost and the second largest of Japan’s four main islands — and several surrounding islands. This island is separated from Honshu to the south by the Tsugaru Strait (although the two islands are connected by train service via an undersea tunnel). The climate is very different from the rest of Japan. It is generally cooler in the summer and very cold in the winter. Hokkaido is criss-crossed by mountain ranges and is famous for its natural scenery, including virgin forests, active volcanoes, and large lakes. Kushiro Marsh, in the east of Hokkaido, is famous as a paradise for migrating birds such as the Japanese red-crested crane. Part of the Shiretoko Peninsula in northeast Hokkaido was designated a World Heritage site in 2005.

Hokkaido was first settled in the sixteenth century by Japanese who began to trade with the indigenous Ainu people there, but it was in the late nineteenth century that the island’s full-scale development was launched by the Meiji administration. Fishing and forestry are important parts of Hokkaido’s agriculture and underlie much of the island’s industrial activity, including food processing, woodworking, pulp, and paper industries.

Hokkaido, about 83,500 square kilometers in area, constitutes more than 20 percent of Japan's land area. Like the other main islands, Hokkaido is generally mountainous, but its mountains are lower than in other parts of Japan; many have leveled summits, and hills predominate. Valleys cut through the terrain, and communications are comparatively easy. Hokkaido was long looked upon as a remote frontier area and until the second half of the nineteenth century was left largely to the indigenous Ainu. The Ainu number fewer than 20,000, and they are being rapidly assimilated into the main Japanese population. Since the movement of modern technology and development into the area in the late nineteenth century, Hokkaido has been considered the major center of Japanese agriculture, forestry, fishing, and mining. Hokkaido, with about 90 percent of Japan's pastureland, produces the same proportion of its dairy products. Manufacturing industry played a smaller role compared with the other regions.

The capital city, Sapporo, is famous for the Snow Festival held in early February, with many large sculptures made of snow and ice on display, forming spectacular scenes. Hakodate, a large city in the south of Hokkaido, is noted for its beautiful night views. Within Japan’s system of prefectures, Hokkaido alone is categorized as a “circuit,” though it is the equivalent of a prefecture.