Talk:Hokkaidō

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Hokkaidō article.


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[edit] Continuing the rant I started in Talk:Tokyo...

Shouldn't this be under simply "Hokkaido?" The term "Hokkaido prefecture" is a pleonasm: the "do" is usually interpreted to mean "prefecture."

According to Google, "Hokkaido prefecture" is also a very rarely-used term. I checked it against other prefectures that don't share their names with cities... the results speak for themselves.

              Alone   + "Prefecture"  Usage ratio
Hokkaido    1.5 mill.     4,560        328 to 1
Ehime        536,000     11,000         49 to 1
Tottori      295,000      5,100         58 to 1
Hyogo        713,000     20,000         36 to 1
Kanagawa     930,000     23,100         40 to 1

To boot, the Hokkaido government calls itself simply the "Hokkaido Government," not the "Hokkaido Prefectural Government." The latter convention is used by every other prefectural government I know of, with the exception of Tokyo.

Saying "Hokkaido Prefecture" is like saying "Kanagawa-ken Prefecture." Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now... :) Sekicho 02:40, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

I completely understand your reasoning. I think this is a kind of the similar case with HIV virus. V of HIV stands for virus obviously. My point is that this, pleonasm?, happens. I supports the name of Hokkaido Prefecture for the sake of consistency. Japan is divided into 45 prefectures and calling Hokkaido or Tokyo anything but prefecture don't make much sense for readers. Not mention to calling Hokkai Prefecture, which is absurd while logically correct. I have never heard of it. Probably we should clarify this in Prefectures of Japan. I see you are going to do this and I think it's good.

-- Taku 22:12, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion, Hokkaido is the name of island, Hokkaido Prefecture is the local government that covers Hokkaido and other other islands. -- Fukumoto 13:00, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

I commented out the following sentence:

The only two major cities are Hakodate, in the far south near Honshu, and Sapporo, also in the south, the regional capital, Hokkaido's largest city, and the regional and prefectural capital.

I agree that Hakodate is probably the second famous city in Hokkaido (for foreign people especially). However, the second largest city isn't Hakodate(283k) but Asahikawa(361k). Nevertheless, if the word "major" means just "famous", I'm sorry to have done it. (I'm a dosanko/道産子, a person born in Hokkaido) --Marsian 14:46, 2004 Jul 15 (UTC)

Agreed. Asahikawa is definitely a major city as far as Hokkaido is concerned... we could perhaps include Wakkanai, Abashiri, Memanbetsu, Obihiro, etc., but I've never been to those places so I don't know how "major" they are. (Even Monbetsu, where you have to dodge icebergs while walking down the street, seemed to be a pretty big city by Hokkaido standards when I was there years ago...) - Sekicho 14:53, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for your fix and comment. (Monbetsu... did you went there to see drift ice? I grew up in Muroran for about 20 years but I've not seen drift ice yet. I'd like to see it (and hear the sound of it breaking) someday...) --Marsian 20:04, 2004 Jul 15 (UTC)
I didn't see too much ice, actually... it was March, so there was still plenty of snow on the ground, but the sea was mostly melted. I think that Monbetsu isn't a major city by Japanese standards (it only has one Mos Burger, one KFC, one Tsutaya, one karaoke box...) but there are probably other cities that we could call "major." -- Sekicho 22:17, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

I removed the sentence regarding the Sea of Okhotsk freezing during the wintertime, bringing a halt to marine traffic. I wintered over on the northern coast of Hokkaido and witnessed that the sea does not freeze over and marine traffic does not halt. What happens is that large ice floes break off from the Kamchatka peninsula and drift through the Sea. With simple navigation or the use of icebreakers, passage remains possible. The real reason for the halt of marine traffic is due to high winds and high seas that start in October and end in April. The northern airports of Monbetsu and particularly Wakkanai are heavily affected by the high winds. Wakkanai Harbor is ice-free but the wind whips up violent waves in the winter time, which renders the harbor almost unusable. 23:57, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)~~

[edit] number of municipalities

The infobox lists the number of municipalities in Hokkaido as 212. I've gone through and added category tags to all the cities, towns, and villages and I get: 34 cities, 150 towns, and 23 villages. Anyone have any idea what the missing 5 might be? -- Rick Block 04:02, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I missed Erimo, but Sawara shouldn't count since it's merged into Mori. http://www.watanabegumi.co.jp/linkse/hokkaidoe.html shows 5 (including Sawara) that have merged (3 from Kameda District and 1 from Kayabe District that apparently merged into Hakodate on December 1, 2004). I think the 212 includes all 4 that merged into Hakodate and Sawara, so the current count should be 207. I'll update the infobox and the count in Japanese prefectures unless someone can give me a better number in the next week or so. -- Rick Block 04:57, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Added Maruseppu, Hokkaido. Since we don't count Sawara, we should have 207 municipalities; 34 cities, 150 towns, and 23 villages, which agrees with the number on the Hokkaido Prefecture homepage. Atsi Otani 06:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
I've updated the count in the prefecture article and Prefectures of Japan. Note that there are 67 districts in category:Districts in Hokkaido Prefecture while the count is 66 since the category includes Shikotan District, Hokkaido (in the disputed Kuril Islands). -- Rick Block 18:17, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] demographics of Hokkaido

the history of Hokkaido implies that the island was largely ainu until occupation brought Japanese immigrants. Wouldn't a demographics section be significant? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hanfresco (talk • contribs) .

[edit] spelling of prefectures

A survey is being conducted at Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related_articles)#Prefectures and macrons to determine which prefectures should have their spelling "macron-ized", per the existing manual of style. Oita has been changed already, and each of the others is current being discussed (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Hyogo, and Kochi). Please join the discussion if you wish. Neier 00:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

  • As a note here, I strongly oppose macronizing Hokkaido - Hokkaido is in the dictionary (and therefore an English word!) [1] WhisperToMe 03:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Is using diacritics in proper nouns not acceptable, dictionary-wise...? Unsure, David Kernow (talk) 23:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Opposed — For the record, I am still opposed.--Endroit 13:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
    • But in the interests of being bold, it was macroned to be consistent with the other 4 islands of Japan (see Kyūshū and Honshū. Bobo12345 22:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
      • That would be me, I guess. There are two ways to interpret the vote. One way is "Should we put macrons here", and the other is "Should we exclude macrons from here". Since the MoS said "use macrons always, except ...", then, I think you can make a strong claim that the voting was whether or not to give Hokkaido/Hokkaidō the Tokyo/Tōkyō exemption (that is, the status quo should have been to give Ōsaka, Hokkaidō, Ōita macrons, and the vote was called to give concensus against enforcing the status quo). 7-5 is not much of a concensus either way, no matter how the subject of the vote is interpreted; and despite the fact that I only weakly supported the macrons for Hokkaidō, I sided with consistency with the other islands. That pretty well exhausts my arguments for keeping the macrons in this case. Neier 23:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The island and the prefecture are not the same thing (this article is about the prefecture, and should have prefecture in the title per the main MOS:JP page), and there are already exceptions to the macronning of prefectures (Osaka and Kyoto). Also, this wasn't keeping macrons, this was creating macrons. The real status quo was the previous location of the page, and you had 5 out of 12 votes to move it. I am disturbed that this was moved under the radar. Dekimasu 05:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

You say the island and the prefecture are not the same thing. But they are aren't they? Sure there is the island of Hokkaido and a few additional minor islands that are part of the prefecture, but they are virtually synonymous. I wonder are there other parallels in the Wikiworld? Australia the continent and Australia the nation? Iceland the nation and Iceland the island? Does it really make sense to have two different articles? As far as prefecture in the title goes, the last time I read the MOS Hokkaido was an exception as the "dō" would essential be translated as prefecture. No one would say Hokkaido-ken, right? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Imars (talk • contribs) .
Dekimasu, if this article is just for the prefecture, then could you or someone please point me to the island's page? I was wanting the page on the island of Hokkaidō. Imars, there are often different articles for the ruling government of a land, and for the land itself e.g. Taiwan and Taiwan Province, Hawaii (island) and Hawaii, Australia_(continent) and Australia. Many times a land, which sometimes shares a name with its ruling entity, has it's own history. Jecowa 09:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I didn't mean that there was an article for the island, but that the content of the article indicates that it refers to the prefecture. That it doesn't exist doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. For a very good example, people are currently debating splitting the feudal domains from the pre-prefectural provinces at MOS:JP. Also, Imars, no one would say Hokkaido-ken, but the MOS specifically states that it should be called Hokkaido Prefecture to avoid naming it Hokkai Prefecture. Dekimasu 11:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I would like to clarify that I am not in love with my vote on this move. If I had voted to keep the macron, it would have been 6-6. I only object to the fact that the move was performed without any further consultation after the suggestion was turned down. Dekimasu 11:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popular culture section

Okay, it looks like we need to have a talk about the trivia section because my removals (which I thought were quite uncontroversial) were deleted. The relevant things that I want to say are here (taken from Wikipedia talk:Trivia):

That should be required reading for anyone participating in this debate. What's said there about Marduk could apply to just about any other article about a deity or other mythological figure:

  • Osiris: "In the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedwig's song "Origin of Love" mentions Osiris";
  • Apollo: "The original classic 1978 Battlestar Galactia series. The main character of the show was called Apollo. Who was an ace Viper pilot (space fighter planes seen throughout the series) and the Captain and strike leader of Galactica's Blue Squadron."
  • Quetzalcoatl: "In the computer game Rise of Legends, there is a playable race called Cuotl. There are also air units in this race's army called 'Quetzals'."
Etc, etc, etc, by way of Kokopelli, Ozymandias, Sigurd, King Arthur... (the list goes on). Adopting the Marduk solution (wiping it all off and depositing it on Marduk in popular culture) as general practice would enable such articles to give a much better impression (seriousness, rigor, perspective) than they do at the moment. Bolivian Unicyclist 12:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
It's a tenable solution. But, then, this is an encyclopedia, not an indiscriminate collection of information. I think editors are perfectly within their rights to delete random trivia factoids on sight. And I'd caution against avoiding "popular culture" sections altogether; these can be nice additions to articles, provided they are well written, academically sound, and analytical rather than exhaustive. I'm currently reading a book on Jeki la Njambè (sadly, we have no article yet), an oral epic of the Duala people of Cameroon, and the author devotes quite a few pages to interpretations in Cameroonian popular culture. So I guess I'm trying to say: If you've got something intelligent to say about Fujin in popular culture, say it. If all you have is the fact that a character in Final Fantasy VIII is named Fujin, keep it to yourself or put it in the Fujin (Final Fantasy character) article. But ghettoizing these sections to X in popular culture is akin to sweeping the dust under the rug. — BrianSmithson 13:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The point being that saying that an anime character or a musical group is from Hokkaido is not relevant to the Hokkaido article, but it might be relevant to the article for that anime character or musical group. Millions of Japanese people are from Hokkaido, and so it is natural that many characters in popular fiction will be from Hokkaido. However, that adds to our understanding of the characters, and does not contribute to our understanding of Hokkaido, and ergo should not be in the Hokkaido article. I believe that the same statement applies to several more of the trivia items than the ones that I took out. Dekimasu 02:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, upon further review, I see no factoids here that contribute to an understanding of Hokkaido. The only ones that come close for me are the "Alaska of Japan" comment (which really could have been made by anyone) and the setting for Kurosawa's The Idiot (but since there is no discussion here about why Hokkaido was chosen as the location, it also fails the test). Both could be properly integrated into the main text of the article. Dekimasu 02:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The discussion about popular culture is directly relevant to this article, and more broadly relevant to articles on Japan generally (since so many Wikipedians enjoy popular culture from Japan). Comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#"X in popular culture" sections of articles will reach a wider readership and, I hope, give us a better chance at developing a community consensus on the matter. You're all invited to participate. Fg2 07:07, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't see anything about Marduk in the article. Is that still there? The popular culture section did look sloppy before. I tried to trim it up some so that each popular culture reference only used one line even in a smaller window. It's fine with me if some are removed, but I liked that "Alaska of Japan" description of Hokkaidō. Jecowa 20:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yesso

The article includes "Yesso" as a former name for the area. I'm not familiar with that reading. Does anyone have English sources that use that spelling? Fg2 00:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I have often seen Yezo. Ooops, after a quick search on the web, I found this reference from the Nutall Encyclopedia 1907. I guess Yesso has been used. The next question would be how widespread are both usages. Number of hits on google (if that is a measure):
  • Yezo Japan 35000
  • Yesso Japan 13700
  • Ezo Japan 174000 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Imars (talk • contribs) 05:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC).
Thanks, that helps. Fg2 06:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
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