Furthermore, while the population of the whole area of Hokkaido was only two hundred sixty-five thousand in 1886 and more than half of the population (one hundred fifty-one thousand) concentrated in Hakodate Prefecture where people had lived in groups since the age of the Matsumae Domain, and Nemeuro Prefecture which consisted mostly of extremely cold undeveloped land had a population of only seventeen thousand, and this posed a problem of an imbalance.
また、当時（1886年）の北海道全域の人口は26万5千人に過ぎず、うち半数以上にあたる15万1千人が松前藩時代以来の集住地域である函館県に集中し、逆に極寒の未開拓地が大半を占める根室県はわずか1万7千人という不均衡の問題が生じていた。