Hokkaido Life

I have worked at Hokkaido University since 2004. The combination of a leafy green campus (routinely voted the most attractive in Japan) and a prime location in the centre of Sapporo is hard to beat. Hokkaido University ("Hokudai") was founded in 1876 as the Sapporo Agricultural College. It is one of the seven “former Imperial universities” in Japan (the others being Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Tohoku and Kyushu) - a sort of "Japanese Ivy League" of the most prestigious national universities. There are many materials about the university and its history on the main website. Below are links to some of the key ones:

University Homepage

A Brief History of the University

Publications in English about the activities of the university

Hokkaido itself is well known within Japan as a tourist destination. There is much information about the region in English. Here are two sites which provide many links to others:

Official Hokkaido Tourism Site

Hokkaido Government English Site

I am also part of a group research project which is developing a website with much data and information about Hokkaido in English, mainly for use by researchers. The site has only just started so there is virtually no information up at present, but it will be expanding in the coming years.

Hokkaido Tourism Dot Net

Finally, there will be various articles about Hokkaido going up on the News page in this site. Please have a look sometime.