Sapporo-Otaru

About Sapporo-Otaru

Otaru is a historic port town on Hokkaido's west coast, serving as one of two cruise options for the Sapporo area. Ships dock at the Otaru Cruise Terminal steps from the Otaru Canal — a photogenic stretch of gas-lamp-lit warehouses now hosting glass and music-box workshops. The Sakaimachi street of historic bank buildings fills an in-town day. Sapporo's Odori Park and Ramen Alley are about 45 minutes by train.

• The name 'Otaru' comes from the Ainu language, possibly meaning 'river running through the sandy beach,' reflecting the Indigenous heritage of Hokkaido long before Japanese settlement.
• Otaru opened the first railway line in all of Hokkaido in 1880 — a daily service between Otaru and Sapporo — and was designated an open trading port by Imperial decree in 1899.
• The city flourished as Hokkaido's financial and business capital and a major trade hub with Japanese-ruled southern Sakhalin until the 1920s, leaving behind a wealth of elegant Meiji- and Taisho-era bank buildings now repurposed as museums.
• Otaru's picturesque canal district and renowned glassware workshops (a legacy of its herring-fishing and port industry) make it one of Hokkaido's top tourist destinations, just 25 minutes from Sapporo by car.
• During World War II, Otaru housed a prison camp for Aleuts forcibly removed from Alaska's Aleutian Islands after the Japanese occupation of Attu; nearly half of the Aleut prisoners died from starvation or disease.