Wall Street of the North

From the latter part of the Meiji period through into the early years of the Showa era, Otaru was Hokkaido’s main economic and financial center. The streets were lined with trading company offices and banks, and the city center had an air of prosperity about it that led to it being nicknamed the “Wall Street of the North.” Today, many of these fine old offices have been repurposed; for example, the former Otaru Branch of the Bank of Japan now houses the Bank of Japan Otaru Museum (a banking museum), and other buildings such as the former headquarters of Hokkaido Bank have also been put to new uses, housing museums, restaurants, etc., but there are still many traces of the past remaining.