(2002 est. pop. 5.7 million). Hokkaido, the northernmost and second largest of Japan's four main islands (83,519 square kilometers, including the 5,010 square kilometers of the Japanese-claimed but, since 1945, Russian-occupied Southern Kuriles). Hokkaido is bordered by the Sea of Japan on the west, the Sea of Okhotsk on the northeast, and the Pacific Ocean on the south and east. The most densely populated areas are the Ishikari plain in the west and the Oshima Peninsula in the south. Seventy percent of the island is covered by mountains and forests and only 10 percent is agriculturally usable. Sapporo, with an estimated 1.8 million inhabitants (2002), is the capital of Hokkaido and its administrative center. Prehistoric relics have been found on Hokkaido, but the earliest Japanese merchant contacts with the indigenous Ainu on Ezo, as Hokkaido was called before its integration into Japan proper in 1869, date from around the twelfth century. Ainu rebellions against encroaching Japanese economic activities in the seventeenth century were suppressed. The central government organized the development of Hokkaido as a frontier region against an increasing Russian presence in the Far East, following the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the period of the Hokkaido Colonization Office (1869–1882). At the end of the nineteenth century, American advisers exerted a strong influence on city planning and agriculture. Hokkaido was built up as a Japanese base, mainly for food and natural resources, until the end of World War II.
Although Hokkaido gained some administrative independence in 1948 (with the Local Administrative Law), responsibility for Hokkaido's economic development remained mainly with the central government and the Hokkaido Development Agency (including ten-year development plans). From 1955, the primary sector (agriculture and natural-resources extraction) lost much of its dominant role in Hokkaido (going from 25.2 percent of the island's production in 1955 to 3.8 percent in 2000). A small manufacturing sector developed, but the most important pillar today is the private and government service sector (82 percent). At the start of the twenty-first century, Hokkaido (and, particularly, "Sapporo Valley") was trying to attract information-related industries.
Hokkaido has active intercultural contact with other northern regions in the world through the Northern Intercity Conference. Since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations with Russia's Far East have intensified (as shown by the 1998 Cultural and Economic Agreement with Sakhalin, the large Russian island to the north of Hokkaido).
Hokkaido's geographic isolation was greatly diminished through the construction of the Seikan Tunnel, for the railway, in 1988, which connected Hokkaido with Honshu. Hokkaido is famous for its beautiful scenery, large national parks, many ski resorts, and its distinct northern flora and fauna, and attracted 9.2 million tourists in 1998.
Further Reading
Edmonds, Richard L. (1985) Northern Frontiers of Qing China and Tokugawa Japan : A Comparative Study of Frontier Policy. University of Chicago Department of Geography Research Paper, no. 215. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fujita, Fumiko. (1994) American Pioneers and the JapaneseFrontier. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Jones, Francis Clifford. (1958) Hokkaido: Its Present State ofDevelopment and Future Prospects. London and New York: Oxford University Press.
Lensen, George A. (1954) Report from Hokkaido: The Remains of Russian Culture in Northern Japan. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
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