Before its establishment, the area occupied by Sapporo (Ishikari Plain, around Ishikari, Hokkaido) was home to indigenous Ainu settlements.^[11] In 1866, at the end of the Edo period, construction began on a canal through the area, encouraging several early settlers to establish Sapporo village.^[12] In 1868, the officially recognized year celebrated as the "birth" of Sapporo, the new Meiji government concluded that the existing administrative center of Hokkaido, which at the time was the port of Hakodate, was in an unsuitable location for defense and further development of the island. As a result, it was determined that a new capital on the Ishikari Plain should be established. The plain itself provided an unusually large expanse of flat, well-drained land, which is relatively uncommon in the otherwise mountainous geography of Hokkaido.

During 1870–1871, Kuroda Kiyotaka, vice-chairman of the Hokkaido Development Commission (Kaitaku-shi), approached the American government for assistance in developing the land. As a result, Horace Capron, Secretary of Agriculture under President Ulysses S. Grant, became an oyatoi gaikokujin and was appointed as a special advisor to the commission. Construction began around Odori Park, which remains as a green ribbon of recreational land bisecting the central area of the city. The city closely followed a grid plan with streets running at right angles to form city blocks. The continued Japanese expansion into northern Hokkaido continued, and Hokkaido's prosperity, particularly in its capital, grew to the point that the Development Commission was deemed unnecessary and abolished in 1882. In 1871, the Hokkaidō Shrine was built in its current location as the Sapporo Shrine.

Edwin Dun came to Sapporo to establish sheep and cattle ranches in 1876. He also demonstrated pig raising and the making of butter, cheese, ham, and sausage. He was married twice, to Japanese women. He returned to the US in 1883 but later returned to Japan as a government secretary. William S. Clark, who was the president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst), came to be the founding vice-president of the Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaido University) for eight months from 1876 to 1877. He taught academic science subjects and lectured on the Bible as an "ethics" course, introducing Christian principles to the college's first entering class.

In 1880, the entire area of Sapporo was renamed as "Sapporo-ku" (Sapporo Ward),^[13] and a railroad between Sapporo and Temiya, Otaru was laid. That year, the Hōheikan, a hotel and reception facility for visiting officials and dignitaries, was built adjacent to the Odori Park. It was later moved to Nakajima Park, where it remains today. Two years later, with the abolition of the Kaitaku-shi, Hokkaidō was divided into three prefectures: Hakodate, Sapporo, and Nemuro. The name of the urban district in Sapporo remained Sapporo-ku, while the rest of the area in Sapporo-ku was changed to Sapporo-gun. The office building of Sapporo-ku was also located in the urban district.^[13]

Sapporo, Hakodate, and Nemuro Prefectures were abolished in 1886, and Hokkaidō government office building, an American-neo-baroque-style structure with red bricks, constructed in 1888. The last squad of the Tondenhei, the soldiers who pioneered Hokkaido, settled in the area where the Tonden district in Kita-ku, Sapporo is currently located. Sapporo-ku administered the surrounding Sapporo-gun until 1899, when the new district system was announced. After that year, Sapporo-ku was away from the control of Sapporo-gun.^[13] The "ku" (district) enforced from 1899 was an autonomy which was a little bigger than towns, and smaller than cities. In Hokkaido at that time, Hakodate-ku and Otaru-ku also existed.^[14]

In 1907, Tohoku Imperial University was established in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, and Sapporo Agricultural College became part of the university as its faculty of agriculture. Parts of neighbouring villages, including Sapporo Village, Naebo Village, Kami Shiroishi Village, and districts where the Tonden-hei had settled, were integrated into Sapporo-ku in 1910. The Sapporo Streetcar was opened in 1918, and Hokkaido Imperial University was established in Sapporo-ku as the fifth Imperial University in Japan, by splitting off the agricultural faculty from Tohoku Imperial University again—another railroad operated in Sapporo, the Jōzankei Line, which was ultimately abolished in 1969.

In 1922, the national government in Tokyo announced a new city system, and Sapporo-ku was officially renamed Sapporo City.^[12] The Sapporo Municipal Bus System was started in 1930. In 1937, Sapporo was chosen as the site of the 1940 Winter Olympics, but the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War led to its cancellation the next year. Maruyama Town was integrated as a part of Chūō-ku in 1940, and the Okadama Airport was constructed in 1942. During World War II, the city was bombed by American naval aircraft in July 1945.^[15]

The first Sapporo Snow Festival was held in 1950. In the same year, adjacent Shiroishi Village was integrated into Sapporo City, rendered as a part of Shiroishi-ku, and Atsubetsu-ku.^[16] In 1955, Kotoni Town, the entire Sapporo Village, and Shinoro Village were merged into Sapporo, becoming a part of the current Chūō-ku, Kita-ku, Higashi-ku, Nishi-ku, and Teine-ku.^[16] The expansion of Sapporo continued, with the merger of Toyohira Town in 1961, and Teine Town in 1967, each becoming a part of Toyohira-ku, Kiyota-ku, and Teine-ku.^[16]

The ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Sapporo and Hokkaido was held in 1968. The Sapporo Municipal Subway system was inaugurated in 1971, which made Sapporo the fourth city in Japan to have a subway system. From February 3 to 13, 1972, the 1972 Winter Olympics were held, the first Winter Olympics held in Asia.^[12] On April 1 of the same year, Sapporo was designated as one of the cities designated by government ordinance, and seven wards were established.^[16] The last public performance by the opera singer, Maria Callas, was in Sapporo at the Hokkaido Koseinenkin Kaikan on 11 November 1974.^[17] The Sapporo Municipal Subway was expanded when the Tōzai line started operation in 1976, and the Tōhō line was opened in 1988, as well as the New Chitose Airport in the same year. In 1989, Atsubetsu-ku and Teine-ku were separated from Shiroishi-ku and Nishi-ku. Annual events in Sapporo began, including the Pacific Music Festival in 1990 and the Yosakoi Sōran Festival in 1992. A professional football club, Consadole Sapporo, was established in 1996. In 1997, Kiyota-ku was separated from Toyohira-ku. In the same year, Hokkaidō Takushoku Bank, a Hokkaido-based bank with headquarters in Odori, went bankrupt.^[18]

In 2001, construction of the Sapporo Dome was completed. In 2002, the Dome hosted three matches during the 2002 FIFA World Cup: Germany vs Saudi Arabia, Argentina vs England, and Italy vs Ecuador, all in the first round. Fumio Ueda was elected as Sapporo mayor for the first time in 2003. Sapporo became the home to a Nippon Professional Baseball team, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, in 2004, which won the 2006 Japan Series, and the victory parade was held on Ekimae-Dōri (a street in front of Sapporo Station) in February 2007.

The Hokkaidō Shinkansen line, which currently connects Honshu to Hakodate through the Seikan Tunnel, is planned to link to Sapporo by March 2039.^[19]

Sapporo has a humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfa), with a wide range of temperature between the summer and winter. Summers are generally warm and humid, but not oppressively hot, and winters are cold and very snowy, with an average snowfall of 4.79 m (15 ft 9 in) per year.^[22] Sapporo is one of few metropolises in the world with such heavy snowfall,^[23] enabling it to hold events and festivals with snow statues. The heavy snowfall is due to the Siberian High developing over the Eurasian land mass and the Aleutian Low developing over the northern Pacific Ocean, resulting in a flow of cold air southeastward across the Tsushima Current and to western Hokkaido. The city's annual average precipitation is around 1,100 mm (43.3 in), and the mean annual temperature is 8.5 °C (47.3 °F).^[24]

The highest temperature ever recorded in Sapporo was 36.3 °C (97.3 °F) on August 23, 2023.^[25] The coldest temperature ever recorded was −28.5 °C (−19.3 °F) on February 1, 1929.^[25]