Nishino Jinja

Quick facts

Address

1-3-1-3 Heiwa 1-jo, Nishi-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido

Spiritual entities

Hachiman (八幡神)

About this place

Nishino Jinja stands in Nishi-ku, Sapporo. Its deities are Toyotamahime, Ugayafukiaezu and Homudawake. The opening of the Nishino district began in 1885 with five settler households who crossed to Hokkaido holding the guardian deity of their home, and the small shrine those five households raised to enshrine three deities as guardians of the settlement is held to be the beginning of Nishino Jinja. Deities were merged in 1899; permission to build the shrine anew was granted in 1915 and the hall was built the following year. Religious-corporation registration was completed in 1952, the hall was rebuilt in 1967, and in 1983 large-scale works followed — an offertory hall, extensions to the worship hall and the food-offering hall, and a copper reroofing. The shrine states its benefits as safe childbirth, good matches, warding off misfortune, purification from misfortune, and rising fortune. Its prayers include safe childbirth on days of the Dog, conception on days of the Rat, and recovery from illness on days of the Monkey. The annual festival is 15 September.

Origin and history

The opening of the Nishino district began in 1885 with five settler households who crossed to Hokkaido holding the guardian deity of their home, and the small shrine those five households raised to enshrine three deities as guardians of the settlement is held to be the beginning of Nishino Jinja.

Deities were merged in 1899; permission to build the shrine anew was granted in 1915 and the hall was built the following year. Religious-corporation registration was completed in 1952.

The hall was rebuilt in 1967, and in 1983 large-scale works followed — an offertory hall, extensions to the worship hall and the food-offering hall, and a copper reroofing.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Five households holding a guardian deity

  In 1885 five settler households crossed to Hokkaido holding the guardian deity of home and raised a small shrine to three deities as guardians of the settlement.

  documented history

• Power spotFertility & ChildrenLove & RomanceProtection & Safety

  From safe childbirth to rising fortune

  The shrine states its benefits as safe childbirth, good matches, warding off misfortune, purification from misfortune, and rising fortune.

  documented history

• What people do hereFertility & ChildrenHealth & Healing

  Prayers assigned to zodiac days

  Safe childbirth is prayed for on days of the Dog, conception on days of the Rat, and recovery from illness on days of the Monkey.

  documented history

This shrine dates the opening of its district from the year the god arrived, not the year the people did. The opening of Nishino began in 1885 with five settler households who crossed holding the guardian deity of home. Five households — five.

Every shrine in Sapporo brought something. Hokkaido Jingu’s three deities came by ship and on a man’s back at the state’s direction; Kotoni Jinja’s farmer-soldiers brought their old lord and made him a god; Miyoshi Jinja’s founder brought a divided spirit from Akita. What came here was a home guardian deity whose name is not even recorded. It is the act of carrying, rather than whose god it was, that survives in the account.

The benefits are the shrine’s own: safe childbirth, good matches, warding off misfortune, purification, rising fortune. Some prayers are pinned to particular days — safe childbirth on days of the Dog, conception on days of the Rat, recovery from illness on days of the Monkey. No other shrine on this list assigns wishes to days of the zodiac.

The halls have been worked on repeatedly: built new in 1916, rebuilt in 1967, and in 1983 extended from the offertory hall to a copper roof. A century of building out from one 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. 西野神社 — 北海道神社庁札幌支部 (accessed 2026-08-16)
2. 西野神社 — 西野神社 (accessed 2026-08-16)