The was a collection of foreign settlement sites scattered across

Hakodate is a Cities of Japan, city and seaports of Japan, port located in Oshima Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital city of Oshima Subprefecture. As of January 31, 2024, the city had an estimated population of 239,813 with 138,807 househol ...

. A warehouse,

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church, and

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

church remain from the settlement era.

History

The

Ansei Treaties The Ansei Treaties (Japanese: 安政条約) or the Ansei Five-Power Treaties (Japanese: 安政五カ国条約) are a series of treaties signed in 1858, during the Japanese Ansei era, between Japan on the one side, and the United States, Great B ...

of 1858 decided that Hakodate would be opened (allowed foreigners to do business) along with

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

, Niigata,

Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

, and

Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...

. Foreigners had especially looked favourably upon Hakodate; as Commodore Perry forced the Tokugawas' hand in revoking the ''

sakoku is the most common name for the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and almost all ...

'' policy, Russians had similarly visited Hakodate years before. The

Treaty of Shimoda The Treaty of Shimoda (下田条約, ''Shimoda Jouyaku'') (formally Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between Japan and Russia 日露和親条約, ''Nichi-Ro Washin Jouyaku'') of February 7, 1855, was the first treaty between the Russian Empire, a ...

, signed a year before the Ansei Treaties, had provided Americans and Russians with trade settlements in Hakodate; thus, Hakodate had more extensive contact with foreigners and their interests than most cities that were designated to have a foreign settlement within them. Unlike the more defined borders of the other foreign settlements, due to the large amount of readily available land, the Hakodate magistrate opened up land whenever available to meet the demands of foreign settlers. The main site of foreign settlement in Hakodate was , now present day . The site was constructed in 1860, consisting of about 1730 ''

tsubo A ''pyeong'' (abbreviationpy) is a Korean unit of area (mathematics), area and floorspace, equal to a square ''kan (unit), kan'' or 36square Korean feet. The ''ping'' and ''tsubo'' are its equivalent Taiwanese units, Taiwanese and Japanese units ...

'' (approximately 0.6

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s) in 1878. The foreign settlement was also opened sometime later, though few foreigners were interested in the area and the land remained largely barren. Often, foreigners lived with local people in mixed areas called , a feature unseen in other foreign settlements. The population of the foreign settlement, at its height, consisted of 72 people: 35 Chinese, 20 British, 6 French, 4 Russians, 3 Americans, 2 Danes and 2 Germans. Due to the small foreign population, there was no official governance of the settlement. From 1878 to 1879, a large fire devastated the Hakodate urban area, including portions of the foreign settlement as well.

Legacy

Many of the stores and buildings built by the foreigners, while nonexistent today, have influenced some of Hakodate's architecture: there are many quasi-Western buildings built by local Japanese, especially clustered around the former settlements, to this day. Some buildings built in this style are the , , and the . These buildings generally have a traditional style first floor and a Western second floor, have vertical decorated windows, a ledge between floors, and

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural sty ...

on the roof. Karl Weidl-Raymon (1894-1987), a Bohemian immigrant that lived in the settlement, founded a sausage company in Hakodate. His Thuringer sausages are a Hakodate specialty.

References

{{Reflist History of Hakodate History of the foreign relations of Japan 19th century in Japan

History

Legacy

See also

References