{"id":87671,"date":"2026-02-13T18:05:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=87671"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:05:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:35:51","slug":"hokkaido-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/hokkaido-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Hokkaido Islands, Location, Geography, Climate Change, Features"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hokkaido Islands are Japan\u2019s northernmost and second largest island, covering 83,423.84 km\u00b2 and ranking 21st globally by area. It lies north of Honshu, separated by the Tsugaru Strait and close to Russia across the La P\u00e9rouse Strait. The island is bordered by the Sea of Japan to the west, the Sea of Okhotsk to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the east and south. Sapporo City is located on the Ishikari River and serves as the administrative headquarters. Hokkaido forms a key part of the Japanese Archipelago.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Also Read: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/lakshadweep-islands\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lakshadweep Islands<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><b>Hokkaido Islands Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The major highlighting features of the Hokkaido Islands have been listed below:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Position in Japanese Archipelago<\/strong>: Hokkaido is the northernmost of Japan\u2019s five main islands within the 14,125 Islands of the Japanese Archipelago.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Location<\/strong>: It lies near Russia\u2019s Sakhalin Oblast and forms the northern arc of Japan\u2019s island chain stretching over 3,000 km.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Surrounding Water Bodies<\/strong>: The island is bordered by the Sea of Japan in the west, the Sea of Okhotsk in the north and the Pacific Ocean in the east and south. Key straits include Tsugaru Strait, La P\u00e9rouse Strait and Nemuro Strait.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Area and Relief<\/strong>: With 83,423.84 km\u00b2 area, it is Japan\u2019s second largest island. The interior is mountainous with volcanic plateaux. Major plains include Ishikari 3,800 km\u00b2, Tokachi 3,600 km\u00b2, Kushiro 2,510 km\u00b2 and Sarobetsu 200 km\u00b2.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Rivers<\/strong>: The Ishikari River flows through Sapporo city of Hokkaido.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Wetlands<\/strong>: Kushiro Wetland is Japan\u2019s largest wetland and a Ramsar site since 1980. Other wetlands include Lake Utonai and Lake Akkeshi.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Climate<\/strong>: Hokkaido has a sub arctic climate with 8\u00b0C annual average temperature and 1,150 mm rainfall. January averages -9\u00b0C in Asahikawa; August averages 21\u00b0C. Snowfall reaches 11 metres in western mountains.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Recent Climate Change<\/strong>: In April 2024, Sapporo recorded 26\u00b0C, its earliest summer day. Japan\u2019s temperature has risen 1.28\u00b0C per century since 1898. Sea ice in the Sea of Okhotsk has reduced thickness by 30% in 30 years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Biodiversity<\/strong>: The island has three lineages of Ussuri brown bear, Asia\u2019s largest population outside Russia. Species include Steller\u2019s sea eagle, Yezo sika deer, Ezo red fox and Sakhalin fir.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Geological Activity<\/strong>: Major earthquakes include 7.7 magnitude in 1993, 8.3 in 2003, 6.6 in 2018 and 6.1 in 2021.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Volcano<\/strong>: Active volcanoes include Mount Usu, Mount Tokachi and Mount Meakan.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Also Read: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/indian-islands\/\" target=\"_blank\">Indian Islands<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hokkaido Islands are Japan\u2019s northernmost and second largest island, covering 83,423 km\u00b2, known for volcanoes, Location, wetlands, cold climate and wildlife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":87452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[786],"tags":[4935,5396],"class_list":{"0":"post-87671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-studies","8":"tag-geography","9":"tag-hokkaido-islands","10":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87687,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87671\/revisions\/87687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}