Hakodate

Hakodate, city, southern Hokkaido ken (prefecture), northern Japan. It is situated on the Tsugaru Strait between Hokkaido and Honshu. The city is built along the northwestern base of a rocky promontory that forms the eastern boundary of a naturally sheltered spacious harbour.

Until the mid-18th century Hakodate remained in the hands of the Ainu in spite of various attempts by the Japanese government to gain control of the port. In 1789 it was made a base for Japanese deep-sea fishing, which led to its prosperity. Goryokaku, a Western-style fort later converted to a park, was built soon after Hakodate opened to international trade in the 19th century. Russians built a Byzantine-style church in 1859.

Hakodate was long regarded as the capital of Hokkaido. It declined after World War II but remained an important point of transit between Hokkaido and Honshu; an airport was established there in the early 1960s, and in 1988 the Seikan Tunnel was completed beneath the Tsugaru Strait, linking Hakodate with Homori on Honshu. The city’s principal industries are tourism and the cultivation and processing of salmon and seaweed. Mount Hakodate (1,100 feet [335 metres]) rises to the southwest; on its eastern slope are a municipal library and museum, the latter devoted to the Ainu and Nivkh (formerly Gilyak) peoples. In the east are Yunokawa Spa (one of the oldest hot-spring resorts on the island) and the only Trappist convent for women in Japan (1898). Inc. city, 1922. Pop. (2005) 294,264; (2010) 279,127.