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Hakodate is a port city in the south of Hokkaido, Japan, famous for the night view from Mount Hakodate, the star-shaped fort of Goryokaku and its fresh seafood, especially squid. With about 240,000 people it is the third largest city in Hokkaido and faces the Tsugaru Strait across from Honshu.
In 1859 Hakodate became one of the first Japanese ports opened to foreign trade, and consulates and churches soon rose on the slopes of Motomachi below Mount Hakodate. In 1869 the last battle of the Boshin War was fought around Goryokaku, the headquarters of the short-lived Republic of Ezo.
Visitors walk the steep Hachiman-zaka slope, visit the Russian Orthodox church and the Old Public Hall, and shop in the red brick warehouses by the harbour. Mornings start with a seafood breakfast at the Hakodate Morning Market, and evenings end with the ropeway ride up Mount Hakodate for one of the most famous night views in Japan.
Mount Hakodate is a 334-metre extinct volcano at the southern tip of Hakodate, once an island joined to Hokkaido by a sandbar on which the city now stands. A ropeway climbs to the summit, where the night view of the lit-up isthmus between two bays is one of the most famous in Japan.
Hachiman-zaka is a broad, straight slope in the Motomachi district of Hakodate that runs down from the foot of Mount Hakodate to the harbour. Lined with trees and lit at night in winter, it frames a view of the bay and the old ferry Mashu Maru, and it is one of the best-loved scenes in the city.
The Hakodate Orthodox Church, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, stands in Motomachi in Hakodate on the site of the Russian consulate chapel of 1860, the first Orthodox church in Japan. The present white church with green domes dates from 1916 and is an Important Cultural Property.
The Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward was completed in 1910 on the slopes of Motomachi in Hakodate after a great fire destroyed the old meeting halls. The colonial-style wooden building, painted blue-grey and yellow, is an Important Cultural Property, and its balcony looks over the bay.
The Hakodate Morning Market began in 1945 when farmers sold vegetables in front of Hakodate station and moved to its present site near the station in 1956. Stalls sell crab, sea urchin, salmon roe and squid, and many small restaurants serve seafood rice bowls from early morning.
The Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse is a row of brick warehouses on the harbour of Hakodate, built for a merchant business that began the city's first commercial warehouse trade in 1887. Today they hold shops, a beer hall and restaurants, and the waterfront is lovely when lit up at night.
The Former British Consulate of Hakodate is a museum in Motomachi, Hakodate, in the consulate building completed in 1913 that served Britain until 1934. It tells the story of the opening of Hakodate to foreign trade, and its garden and tea room, Victorian Rose, are popular with visitors.
The Hakodate Museum of Northern Peoples occupies the former Bank of Japan branch of 1926 in Hakodate and opened in 1989. It shows clothing, tools and crafts of the Ainu and other northern peoples, including a collection of Ainu daily tools that is an Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property.
Goryokaku is a five-pointed star fort in Hakodate, designed by Takeda Ayasaburo on European models and completed in 1866. It was the headquarters of the Republic of Ezo and the scene of the last battle of the Boshin War in 1869, and today its moats are lined with cherry trees.
Goryokaku Tower is an observation tower beside Goryokaku in Hakodate, first opened in 1964 for the fort's centenary and rebuilt taller in 2006. Its observation deck shows the whole star shape of the fort below, along with Mount Hakodate, the city and the Tsugaru Strait beyond.
The Hakodate Magistrate's Office is a reconstruction, completed in 2010, of the shogunate's government office that stood inside Goryokaku in Hakodate. Rebuilt on its original site, it shows rooms of the office and the history of Goryokaku and the Republic of Ezo.
The Trappistine Convent in eastern Hakodate was founded in 1898 by eight nuns from France and was the first contemplative convent for women in Japan. Its brick buildings and gardens can be visited, and its shop is famous for madeleines and cookies, though the cloister is closed.
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