Sapporo

Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island, and with 1,962,596 people on 1 August 2026 it is the fifth most populous city in the country and the largest north of Tokyo. It is young by Japanese standards: the land was sparsely inhabited by the indigenous Ainu until the Hokkaido Development Commission set up its headquarters here in 1869, and the city was laid out on a grid inspired by Kyoto and Heijō-kyō, around Odori Park. In 1972 it hosted the first Winter Olympics held in Asia. Come for the snow, the space and a Japan that feels different from the south.

Odori Park, the park the grid was laid out around, is the centre of the old plan. The Sapporo Snow Festival, first held in 1950, now draws more than 2 million visitors; check this year’s dates and venues with the city’s tourism office. Hokkaidō Shrine has stood in its current location since 1871, when it was built as the Sapporo Shrine. The red-brick former Hokkaidō government office, finished in 1888 in an American neo-baroque style, is the landmark of the Meiji-era city. Beyond the centre, the grid makes Sapporo easy to read, and in winter the snow makes every walk slower than the map suggests.

If you fly, the airport to look for is New Chitose, which opened in 1988; check the route from there into the city in a transit app before you land. Inside Sapporo, the municipal subway, whose Tōzai line opened in 1976 and Tōhō line in 1988, runs alongside a bus network that dates back to 1930. A Suica or Pasmo IC card pays for trains and buses here as it does across the country. The grid is easy to walk in summer; in winter the heavy snow the city is known for changes that, so wear shoes with real grip and allow more time for everything.

Sapporo has a humid continental climate, with long, very cold winters and the heavy snow it is known for, a yearly mean of 8.5°C and about 1,100 mm of precipitation. Summer can still turn hot: the record high is 36.3°C, set on 23 August 2023. The Snow Festival brings the winter crowds, and cherry blossom arrives later here than in Tokyo.

Goodbars sells a Japan eSIM you install at home and switch on when you land; it runs on NTT docomo, Japan's largest mobile network by mobile contracts, and our Japan coverage page shows where it reaches and what independent speed tests measure. Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is a long-standing habit for visitors to Japan too, and it suits a group that moves together all day.