The Development of Urban Settlement System in Hokkaido

Abstract

This paper aims to trace the historical change in pattern and process of distribution of urban settlements in Hokkaido for period from 1879 to 1976. Total of 576 Shigaichi, urban settlements, were taken up for the analysis in this paper. Shigaichi means built-up area where more than 200 households collect together. These urban settlements were classified into five groups based on both their orgin and their main industrial activities; inland settlements, coastal settlements, mining settlements, satellite settlements and others.Table 1 and Fig. 1 show the change in rank-size distribution of Shigaichi, and Fig. 2 shows spatial distribution of Shigaichi in various years by size. Fig. 3, 4 and 5 show the change in number of population or number of households of Shigaichi in various periods. In Table 2, 3 and 4, the changes in number of Shigaichi and its growth rate were examined in each period. All these analyses show that we can discern three stages of development of urban settlement system in Hokkaido as follows (Fig. 7).1) First Stage: Meiji Era (1868-1912)In the early years of this stage, urban settlements were only distributed in the southwestern part of Hokkaido. As the frontiers moved to the east and to the north, there emerged many urban settlements as regional centers. Accordingly, these urban settlements have constituted the framework of urban settlement system. Hakodate had been the primate city throughout this period.2) Second Stage: Taishou Era (1912-1926) to just after the end of World War IIIn this period, many inland settlements have established and urban settlement system had begun to show dispersion. Inland settlements had experienced the highest increase in population, while coastal settlements had recorded inconsiderable growth in population. Throughout this period, Hakodate had been the same size as Otaru and Sapporo, and there was no primate city.3) Third Stage: After 1955Population had increased rather rapidly in large urban settlements, and this had strengthened a tendency towards unification in urban settlement system. The total number of urban settlements had decreased, however urban settlements with more than 5, 000 households had increased rapidly in number. The difference in growth rate of households is also seen among groups of urban settlements. The population of satellite settlements have increased remarkably, while that of mining settlements have decreased considerably. Sapporo has established its status as the primate city.To sum up the above mentioned development process, there are three different functions which played the most important part in the development of urban settlements: Gateway function for the first stage, central place function for the second and agglomeration function for the last (Fig. 8).