Hakodate (函館市, Hakodate-shi) (formerly written as Hakodadi) is a city and port located in Oshima Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan.

Another possibility is that it means "box" or "building" in Japanese which refers to the castle built by the Kono (Kano) clan in the fifteenth century.

[2] Hakodate was founded in 1454, when Kono Kaganokami Masamichi constructed a large manor house in the fishing village of Usukeshi, the word for bay in Ainu.

After his death, Masamichi's son, Kono Suemichi, and family were driven out of Hakodate into nearby Kameda during the Ainu rebellion in 1512 and little history was recorded for the area during the next 100 years.

There was constant low-level conflict in the Oshima peninsula at the time with the Ainu, as armed merchants, like the Kono family, established bases to control trade in the region.

The town's fortunes received a further boost in 1741 when the Matsumae clan, which had been granted nearby areas on the Oshima Peninsula as a march fief, moved its Kameda magistracy to Masamichi's house in Hakodate.

Merchant Takadaya Kahei, who is honoured as the founder of Hakodate port, set up trading operations, which included opening the northern Etorofu sea route to the Kuril island fisheries.

[2] The port of Hakodate was surveyed by a fleet of five U.S. ships in 1854 under the conditions of the Convention of Kanagawa, as negotiated by Commodore Matthew C. Perry.

A mariner in Perry's fleet died during a visit to the area and became the first U.S. citizen to be buried in Japan when he was interred in Hakodate's cemetery for foreigners.

British merchant, naturalist and spy, Thomas Blakiston, took up residence in Hakodate in the summer of 1861 to establish a saw milling business.

Hakodate also played a central role in the Boshin War between the Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Emperor which followed Perry's opening of Japan.

Shogunate rebel Enomoto Takeaki fled to Hakodate with the remnants of his navy and his handful of French advisers in winter 1868, including Jules Brunet.

The republic tried unsuccessfully to gather international recognition to foreign legations in Hakodate, including the Americans, French, and Russians.

The rebels occupied Hakodate's famous European-style Goryōkaku fort and used it as the centre of their defences in southern Hokkaido.

In 1878, Isabella Bird reported of the city in her travelogue: The streets are very wide and clean, but the houses are mean and low.

Looking down upon it from above you see miles of grey boulders, and realise that every roof in the windy capital is "hodden doun" by a weight of paving stones.Hakodate was awarded city status on August 1, 1922.

In 1976, a defecting Soviet pilot named Viktor Belenko flew his plane into the civilian airport in Hakodate.

[7] The undersea Seikan Tunnel with the Shinkansen rail line greatly reduced the travel time from Honshu to Hakodate.

Ōizumi, the older brother of actor Yo Oizumi, defeated 3-term incumbent Toshiki Kudō, receiving more than 80% of the vote.

Resembling an air traffic control tower, the structure offers a panoramic view of the park, including mainland Japan across the Tsugaru Strait on clear days.

A narrow land area separates Hakodate Bay to the west from Tsugaru Strait in the south-east side.

With an alternate definition, using the −3 °C (27 °F) isotherm, Hakodate falls in the Humid Subtropical Climate (Cfa) commonly found on the east coast of the continents.

Shio ramen has a pale, clear, broth made with plenty of salt and any combination of chicken, pork bone, vegetables, fish, and seaweed.