Hoshioki Jinja

Quick facts

Address

1-8-1 Hoshioki-minami, Teine-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido

Spiritual entities

Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神) · Ōkuninushi (大国主命)

About this place

Hoshioki Jinja stands in Teine-ku, Sapporo. Its deities are Amaterasu, Toyouke and Onamuchi. In 1884 sixteen households settled here from Saeki district in Hiroshima, and the opening of Hoshioki began. Migration from Yamaguchi, Toyama and Aomori followed and formed a village, and the settlers, as something in which to share hardship and ease alike, raised a small wooden shrine at Hoshioki 153 in 1887. It was moved to its present site in 1912. The present hall was built in 1973, the shrine office in 1975, and the office was extended in 1986. The annual festival is 22 September, with the eve festival on 21 September. No benefit that may be prayed for is stated.

Origin and history

In 1884 sixteen households settled here from Saeki district in Hiroshima, and the opening of Hoshioki began.

Migration from Yamaguchi, Toyama and Aomori followed and formed a village, and the settlers, as something in which to share hardship and ease alike, raised a small wooden shrine at Hoshioki 153 in 1887. It was moved to its present site in 1912.

The present hall was built in 1973, the shrine office in 1975, and the office was extended in 1986.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Something in which to share hardship and ease

  The settlers, as something in which to share hardship and ease alike, raised a small wooden shrine at Hoshioki 153 in 1887.

  documented history

• Origin

  A village from four prefectures

  Sixteen households settled from Saeki district in Hiroshima in 1884, and migration from Yamaguchi, Toyama and Aomori followed to form a village.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Eighty-six years from small shrine to hall

  It moved to its present site in 1912, and the present hall was built in 1973.

  documented history

This shrine does not begin with anyone’s home deity. Sixteen households came from Saeki district in Hiroshima, and migration from Yamaguchi, Toyama and Aomori followed to form a village — four places of origin, and no record of choosing the god of any one of them. What is given as the reason for building is a single clause: as something in which to share hardship and ease alike.

Sapporo’s shrines usually carry something. Kotoni Jinja brought the founder of an old domain, Miyoshi Jinja a divided spirit from Akita, Toyohira Jinja a guardian from Aomori, Nishino Jinja a home deity whose name is not even recorded. This is the only one built not from what was carried but from what the people who had gathered needed between them — a shrine raised so that people of different origins could become one village.

The three deities are Amaterasu, Toyouke and Onamuchi: gods tied to no particular home province. Shinkotoni Jinja’s farmer-soldier company likewise chose Amaterasu and others rather than a deity from home. Carried, or chosen — Sapporo’s shrines divide along that line.

The buildings have been worked three times: a small wooden shrine in 1887, the move to this site in 1912, and the present hall in 1973 — eighty-six years from the first small shrine.

Related guides

• How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
• What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
• Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
• Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.

Sources

1. 星置神社 — 北海道神社庁札幌支部 (accessed 2026-08-16)