Sapporo

The capital of Hokkaido Prefecture, in the southwest of the island, laid out on the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari. With 1,962,596 residents it is the largest city in Hokkaido, the largest anywhere north of Tokyo, and the fifth-most populous in Japan. The plain was sparsely inhabited by the Ainu before the Hokkaido Development Commission put its headquarters here in 1869; the new city took a grid plan inspired by Kyoto and Heijō-kyō and grew around Odori Park. It hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics, having lost the 1940 games to the war.