Hokkaido is the big island at the north of Japan. Of Japan’s main islands it is the second largest; Honshu, the crowded middle island, is larger. Hokkaido is the cold part of the country: long winters, a lot of snow, wide open land, and fewer people than the south. In English we write Hokkaido with a capital H because it is a place name. The Japanese name, 北海道, is not a poetic nickname; it began as an old government label meaning something like “the North Sea circuit,” the official region covering that northern land. When English speakers say Hokkaido they almost always mean this island, or the prefecture that covers it. Taiwanese students often already know the place from travel — snow, seafood, milk — so the English word is mainly the same name in another script.