Originally a plain sparsely inhabited by the indigenous Ainu people, there were a few trade posts of the Matsumae domain in the area during the Edo period.

Inspired by the ancient cities of Kyoto and Heijō-kyō, it adopted a grid plan and developed around Odori Park.

After the Second World War, it replaced Otaru as Hokkaido's commercial and business hub, and its population surpassed one million by 1970.

[6] In 1866, at the end of the Edo period, construction began on a canal through the area, encouraging a number of early settlers to establish Sapporo village.

[7] In 1868, the officially recognized year celebrated as the "birth" of Sapporo, the new Meiji government concluded that the existing administrative center of Hokkaido, which at the time was the port of Hakodate, was in an unsuitable location for defense and further development of the island.

The plain itself provided an unusually large expanse of flat, well-drained land which is relatively uncommon in the otherwise mountainous geography of Hokkaido.

As a result, Horace Capron, Secretary of Agriculture under President Ulysses S. Grant, became an oyatoi gaikokujin and was appointed as a special advisor to the commission.

Construction began around Odori Park, which still remains as a green ribbon of recreational land bisecting the central area of the city.

He taught academic subjects in science and lectured on the Bible as an "ethics" course, introducing Christian principles to the first entering class of the college.

That year the Hōheikan, a hotel and reception facility for visiting officials and dignitaries, was built adjacent to the Odori Park.

[8] Sapporo, Hakodate, and Nemuro Prefectures were abolished in 1886, and Hokkaidō government office building, an American-neo-baroque-style structure with red bricks, constructed in 1888.

The last squad of the Tondenhei, the soldiers pioneering Hokkaido, settled in the place where the area of Tonden in Kita-ku, Sapporo is currently located.

In 1937, Sapporo was chosen as the site of the 1940 Winter Olympics, but due to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, this was cancelled the next year.

In the same year, adjacent Shiroishi Village was integrated into Sapporo City, rendered as a part of Shiroishi-ku, and Atsubetsu-ku.

[11] The last public performance by the opera singer, Maria Callas, was in Sapporo at the Hokkaido Koseinenkin Kaikan on 11 November 1974.

The Hokkaidō Shinkansen line, which currently connects Honshu to Hakodate through the Seikan Tunnel, is planned to link to Sapporo by 2030.

Neighbouring cities are Ishikari, Ebetsu, Kitahiroshima, Eniwa, Chitose, Otaru, Date, and adjoining towns are Tōbetsu, Kimobetsu, Kyōgoku.

Sapporo has a humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfa), with a wide range of temperature between the summer and winter.

Summers are generally warm and humid, but not oppressively hot, and winters are cold and very snowy, with an average snowfall of 4.79 m (15 ft 9 in) per year.

[17] Sapporo is one of few metropolises in the world with such heavy snowfall,[18] enabling it to hold events and festivals with snow statues.

The heavy snowfall is due to the Siberian High developing over the Eurasian land mass and the Aleutian Low developing over the northern Pacific Ocean, resulting in a flow of cold air southeastward across Tsushima Current and to western Hokkaido.

Major industries include information technology, retail, and tourism, as Sapporo is a destination for winter sports and events and summer activities due to its comparatively cool climate.

[31] Other companies headquartered in Sapporo include Crypton Future Media, DB-Soft, Hokkaido Air System, and Royce'.

[citation needed] Another portion was presented to Mikhail Gorbachev by the Nipponzan-Myohoji monk, Junsei Terasawa.

Members of the dancing teams wear special costumes and compete on the roads or stages constructed on the festival sites.

The city is home to Sapporo Brewery, white chocolate biscuits known as 'shiroi koibito' (白い恋人), and also as the birthplace of miso ramen.

Sapporo was selected as host to the 5th Winter Olympics, scheduled for February 3 to 12, 1940; however Japan had to cancel the event, consequently handing the decision back to the IOC, after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937.

Some structures built for Olympic events remain in use today, including the ski jumps at Miyanomori and Okurayama.

Within the city are commercial ski hills including Moiwayama, Bankeiyama, KobaWorld, Sapporo Teine and Fu's.

Toyota Big Air was a major international snowboarding event held annually in Sapporo Dome.