Things to Do in Sapporo, Japan: Walking Guide

Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido, a planned city known for broad urban spaces, historic Western-style buildings, museums, art, and connections with Ainu culture. The best things to do in Sapporo range from exploring Odori Park and the Clock Tower to discovering the city’s brewing history, winter-sports heritage, and cultural institutions. Neywo offers a free Sapporo audio guide with 80 narrated places, available in 11 languages.

What to see in Sapporo

Sapporo Clock Tower

The Sapporo Clock Tower is one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. Its formal name is the Former Sapporo Agricultural College Drill Hall, but it is almost always known simply as the Clock Tower.

Built in an American style during Sapporo’s development in the 1870s, the wooden building is one of the city’s few surviving Western-style structures. Its clock still works, with chimes sounding every hour. The building is also designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan and reflects the introduction of Western education and the development of Hokkaido.

Odori Park

Ōdōri Park stretches across central Sapporo along an east-to-west axis. It was originally planned as the city’s main street before becoming a park, and today its lawns, flower beds, and open plazas create a spacious centre within the urban landscape.

The park covers about 78,901 square metres and contains around 4,700 trees representing 92 kinds, including lilacs, elms, and zelkovas. The Sapporo TV Tower and Sapporo City Archive Museum stand within its boundaries. Odori Park also served as the start and finish area for the Olympic marathon and race-walking events in 2020.

Ōdōri Station

Below the park, Ōdōri Station is an important meeting point in central Sapporo. It is the only station on the Sapporo Municipal Subway where the Namboku, Tōzai, and Tōhō lines all come together.

The station opened on December 16, 1971, as part of the first phase of the Namboku Line. Its platforms extend through several blocks of Chūō-ku, making it a useful reference point while exploring the centre.

Sapporo Beer Museum

The Sapporo Beer Museum occupies a red-brick building in Sapporo Garden Park. Japan’s only museum devoted to beer, it explains the history of Sapporo Beer, its ingredients, and the brewing process through displays and videos.

The building itself dates from 1890, when it was constructed as a factory for the Sapporo Sugar Company. The museum opened in July 1987 and was registered as one of Hokkaido’s Heritage sites in 2004. Its story reaches back to 1876 and the brewer Nakagawa Seibei, who returned from Berlin after learning how to make beer.

Historical Village of Hokkaido

The Historical Village of Hokkaido is an open-air museum in Nopporo Shinrin Koen Prefectural Natural Park. It brings together buildings and streets representing Hokkaido’s history from the Meiji era through the Showa era.

The village opened in 1983 and contains 52 historical structures that were relocated, reconstructed, or recreated. Its four areas present different settings: a town with 31 buildings, a fishing village with four, a farming village with 14, and a mountain village with three.

A horse-drawn tramway adds movement to the open-air museum. It runs on a rare narrow gauge of two feet six inches, or 762 millimetres.

Centennial Memorial Tower

The Centennial Memorial Tower once stood in Nopporo Forest Park as a monument to a century of Hokkaido’s development. Construction began in November 1968, the tower was completed in July 1970, and it opened to the public in April 1971.

The structure was eventually removed after deteriorating with age. Dismantling began around autumn 2022, and the work was completed in August 2023.

Okurayama Ski Jump Stadium

Okurayama Ski Jump Stadium, also known as Ōkurayama-Schanze, occupies the eastern slope of Mount Okura in Sapporo’s Chūō Ward. The large ski-jumping venue gives a clear impression of the scale of the sport: the hill has a total height of 133 metres, while the K-point lies 120 metres from the start.

The stadium hosted major winter sporting events including the 1972 Winter Olympics and the 2007 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Together with Miyanomori Ski Jump Stadium, it is designated as a National Training Center facility for ski jumping.

Sapporo Ainu Culture Promotion Center

The Sapporo Ainu Culture Promotion Center, also called Sapporo Pirka Kotan, introduces the history, culture, and way of life of the Ainu people. The name means “Beautiful Village.”

Opened in Sapporo in 2003, the centre is operated and managed by the City of Sapporo. Its exhibits include around 300 artefacts connected with Ainu culture, as well as a traditional-style cise, or dwelling.

Sapporo Art Park

Sapporo Art Park brings visual and performing arts into the forests on the outskirts of the city. This cultural complex in Minami-ku includes museums, sculpture displays, craft facilities, educational ateliers, studios, an art hall, and an outdoor stage.

The park was created to encourage a distinctive new culture in Sapporo and to connect art, the city, and Hokkaido’s natural setting. Construction began in the 1980s, and the complex was fully completed in 1999. It has also been selected as one of Japan’s Hundred Public Buildings.

Sapporo Salmon Museum

Located in Makomanai Park, the Sapporo Salmon Museum—also known as the Toyohira River Salmon Science Museum—focuses on salmon and the natural world around them.

The museum building was designed by Yoshiya Tagami, one of Hokkaido’s representative architects, giving the visit an architectural dimension as well as a scientific and natural-history focus.

Hokkaido Museum of Literature

The Hokkaido Museum of Literature stands in Nakajima Park and is dedicated to literature. It is also known by the Japanese name Hokkaidoritu Bungakukan.

The institution is managed by the Hokkaido Literature Foundation and has a history connected with the former Hokkaido Museum of Literature, which was associated with the Sapporo City Museum.

Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan Sapporo Church

Beside the Sōsei River, Nihon Kirisuto Kyodan Sapporo Church is one of Sapporo’s historic Christian buildings. It began as a Methodist church and is therefore also known as the Old Sapporo Methodist Church.

Built during the Meiji period, the church has an important place in the city’s historic streetscape. The Sapporo Clock Tower is nearby, allowing two notable buildings to be seen in the same central area.

Other places to explore

The Sapporo Museum Activity Center, also known as Sumikawa Sakura Park, is a museum in Sapporo. Jieitai-Mae Station is one of the few above-ground stations on the Sapporo Municipal Subway: only four stations are above ground, all on the southernmost section of the Namboku Line.

The former Miyanomori International Museum of Art, Sapporo, also called Miyanomori Art Museum, was established in April 2006 but is now closed.

Explore Sapporo with a free audio guide

A Sapporo self-guided walking tour lets you explore without joining a group or following a fixed timetable. With Neywo, each story plays as you reach the place, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Neywo currently offers four walking tours in Sapporo:

• Meiji Sapporo: From the Red-Brick Beer Hall to the Clock Tower — 4.41 km, 112 minutes, and 8 narrated stops.
• Odori Park and the Museums of the Old Centre — 2.36 km, 62 minutes, and 5 narrated stops.
• Boys, Be Ambitious: Hokkaido University — 4.9 km, 105 minutes, and 7 narrated stops.
• Nakajima Park: A Meiji Guesthouse, Concert Hall and Shrines — 3.32 km, 87 minutes, and 8 narrated stops.

Download Neywo to explore Sapporo with the story of each place arriving when you do. You can also continue discovering Otaru, Hakodate, Biei, and Asahikawa.