Hokkaido University

Ginkgo Avenue

In fall visitors come to see the golden ginkgo trees

The campus lies just north of Sapporo Station and covers about 180 hectares. Its green space is popular with students and with the general public, who often use it like a park. In fall, tourists and Sapporo residents flock to see the golden ginkgo trees that line Ginkgo Avenue.

180 hectaresthe size of the main campus, about

An American model

A college for farming was founded in 1876 on the American model

Kuroda Kiyotaka travelled to America in 1870 and looked to the American model of settling new lands. He brought back Horace Capron, who pushed new farming methods for Hokkaido's colder climate. The Sapporo Agricultural College was founded in 1876 by William S. Clark, with five faculty members and a first class of 24 students.

24students in the first class

A motto

The motto is said to be the parting words of the college's dean

The university's motto is Boys, Be Ambitious, which is said to be the parting words of William S. Clark, the American dean of the Agricultural College. The university now has 12 undergraduate faculties and 21 postgraduate schools.

A university

It became a university in 1918 and admitted its first woman

The agriculture faculty passed to Hokkaido Imperial University on 1 April 1918, one of nine Imperial Universities. In that year Sechi Katō became the first woman student admitted to the University. The current name came into use in 1947.

The alumni

Its people include a Quaker author and a Nobel winner

Nitobe Inazō, a Quaker, wrote Bushido: the Soul of Japan. Akira Suzuki won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2010, and the alpinist Yuichiro Miura became the oldest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. All are listed among the university's notable people.