札幌

In 1891 the Hokkaido government's gazetteer ruled that Sapporo means dry and vast; the city government today lists several explanations and settles on none. The one it puts first does not appear in the gazetteer's Sapporo entry.

In 1891 the Hokkaido government published a gazetteer of Ainu place names, compiled for that colonial administration by Nagata Hōsei, a Japanese official in its employ. Its entry for Sapporo read the name as Sat poro — dry and vast — and rendered it as continent. It ruled against rivals by name: the reading Sap poro is an error, it wrote, and one person's account of a ground-cherry is not so. A hundred and thirty-five years on, the City of Sapporo lists sari poro pet (reed field, vast, river) and sat poro pet (dry, large, river) among the explanations, and settles on neither. The one it puts first does not appear in that 1891 entry.

The Hokkaido Regional Development Bureau writes that the Toyohira is said to have once turned north near today's city centre, followed the Fushiko and met the Ishikari at Shinoro. The city grew on what the Bureau calls the Toyohira alluvial fan.