Yokohama 

(Japanese: 横浜, pronounced [jokohama] ( listen)) is the second-largest city in Japan by

population[1] and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most
populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo
Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. Yokohama is also the
major economic, cultural, and commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area along the Keihin
Industrial Zone and Californian sister city partnership of San Diego located in the West Coast of
the United States.
Yokohama was one of the cities to open for trade with the West following the 1859 end of
the policy of seclusion and has since been known as a cosmopolitan port city, after Kobe opened
in 1853. Yokohama is the home of many Japan's firsts in the Meiji period, including the first
foreign trading port and Chinatown (1859), European-style sport venues (1860s), English-
language newspaper (1861), confectionery and beer manufacturing (1865), daily newspaper
(1870), gas-powered street lamps (1870s), railway station (1872), and power plant (1882).
Yokohama developed rapidly as Japan's prominent port city following the end of Japan's relative
isolation in the mid-19th century and is today one of its major ports along with
Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Tokyo and Chiba.
Yokohama is the largest port city and hi-tech industrial hub in the Greater Tokyo Area and the
Kantō region. Companies headquartered in Yokohama
include Nissan, JVCKenwood, Keikyu, Koei Tecmo, Sotetsu, and Bank of Yokohama. Famous
landmarks in Yokohama include Minato Mirai 21, Nippon Maru Memorial Park, Yokohama
Chinatown, Motomachi Shopping Street, Yokohama Marine Tower, Yamashita Park,
and Ōsanbashi Pier.

Contents

 1Etymology
 2History
o 2.1Opening of the Treaty Port (1859–1868)
o 2.2Meiji and Taisho Periods (1868–1923)
o 2.3Great Kantō earthquake and the Second World War (1923–1945)
o 2.4Postwar growth and development
 3Geography
o 3.1Topography
o 3.2Geology
o 3.3Climate
 4Cityscape
 5Demographics
o 5.1Population
o 5.2Wards
 6Government and politics
o 6.1List of mayors (from 1889)
 7Culture and sights
o 7.1Museums
o 7.2Gallery
 o 7.3Excursion destinations
 8In popular media
 9Sports
 10Economy and infrastructure
o 10.1Major companies headquartered
o 10.2Transport
 10.2.1Maritime transport
 10.2.2Rail transport
 10.2.2.1Railway stations
 11Education
 12International relations
o 12.1Twin towns – sister cities
o 12.2Partner cities
o 12.3Sister ports
 13Notable people
 14References
o 14.1Citations
o 14.2Sources
 15External links

Etymology[edit]
Yokohama (横浜) means "horizontal beach".[2] The current area surrounded by Maita Park,
the Ōoka River and the Nakamura River have been a gulf divided by a sandbar from the open
sea. This sandbar was the original Yokohama fishing village. Since the sandbar protruded
perpendicularly from the land, or horizontally when viewed from the sea, it was called a
"horizontal beach".[3]

History[edit]
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Yokohama.
Opening of the Treaty Port (1859–1868)[edit]
Before the Western foreigners arrived, Yokohama was a small fishing village up to the end of the
feudal Edo period, when Japan held a policy of national seclusion, having little contact with
foreigners.[4] A major turning point in Japanese history happened in 1853–54, when
Commodore Matthew Perry arrived just south of Yokohama with a fleet of American warships,
demanding that Japan open several ports for commerce, and the Tokugawa shogunate agreed by
signing the Treaty of Peace and Amity.[5]
It was initially agreed that one of the ports to be opened to foreign ships would be the bustling
town of Kanagawa-juku (in what is now Kanagawa Ward) on the Tōkaidō, a strategic highway
that linked Edo to Kyoto and Osaka. However, the Tokugawa shogunate decided that Kanagawa-
juku was too close to the Tōkaidō for comfort, and port facilities were instead built across the
inlet in the sleepy fishing village of Yokohama. The Port of Yokohama was officially opened on
June 2, 1859.[6]
Yokohama quickly became the base of foreign trade in Japan. Foreigners initially occupied the
low-lying district of the city called Kannai, residential districts later expanding as the settlement
grew to incorporate much of the elevated Yamate district overlooking the city, commonly
referred to by English speaking residents as The Bluff.
Kannai, the foreign trade and commercial district (literally, inside the barrier), was surrounded
by a moat, foreign residents enjoying extraterritorial status both within and outside the
compound. Interactions with the local population, particularly young samurai, outside the
settlement inevitably caused problems; the Namamugi Incident, one of the events that preceded
the downfall of the shogunate, took place in what is now Tsurumi Ward in 1862, and prompted
the Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863.
To protect British commercial and diplomatic interests in Yokohama a military garrison was
established in 1862. With the growth in trade increasing numbers of Chinese also came to settle
in the city.[7] Yokohama was the scene of many notable firsts for Japan including the growing
acceptance of western fashion, photography by pioneers such as Felice Beato, Japan's first
English language newspaper, the Japan Herald published in 1861 and in 1865 the first ice cream
confectionery and beer to be produced in Japan.[8] Recreational sports introduced to Japan by
foreign residents in Yokohama included European style horse racing in 1862, cricket in
1863[9] and rugby union in 1866. A great fire destroyed much of the foreign settlement on
November 26, 1866, and smallpox was a recurrent public health hazard, but the city continued to
grow rapidly – attracting foreigners and Japanese alike.

 Gallery


Landing of Commodore Perry and men to meet the Imperial commissioners at Yokohama, 14 July 1853
 

Foreign ships in Yokohama harbor in 1861

 
 

A foreign trading house in Yokohama in 1861

Meiji and Taisho Periods (1868–1923)[edit]

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the port was developed for trading silk, the main trading
partner being Great Britain. Western influence and technological transfer contributed to the
establishment of Japan's first daily newspaper (1870), first gas-powered street lamps (1872) and
Japan's first railway constructed in the same year to connect Yokohama
to Shinagawa and Shinbashi in Tokyo. In 1872 Jules Verne portrayed Yokohama, which he had
never visited, in an episode of his widely read novel Around the World in Eighty Days, capturing
the atmosphere of the fast-developing, internationally oriented Japanese city.
In 1887, a British merchant, Samuel Cocking, built the city's first power plant. At first for his
own use, this coal power plant became the basis for the Yokohama Cooperative Electric Light
Company. The city was officially incorporated on April 1, 1889.[10] By the time
the extraterritoriality of foreigner areas was abolished in 1899, Yokohama was the most
international city in Japan, with foreigner areas stretching from Kannai to the Bluff area and the
large Yokohama Chinatown.
The early 20th century was marked by rapid growth of industry. Entrepreneurs built factories
along reclaimed land to the north of the city toward Kawasaki, which eventually grew to be
the Keihin Industrial Area. The growth of Japanese industry brought affluence, and many
wealthy trading families constructed sprawling residences there, while the rapid influx of
population from Japan and Korea also led to the formation of Kojiki-Yato, then the largest slum
in Japan.

 Gallery


Street scene c. 1880
 
 

Yokohama c. 1880
 

Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse was built in 1913.

Great Kantō earthquake and the Second World War (1923–1945) [edit]
 Gallery


Crown Prince Hirohito (later Emperor) visited Yokohama immediately after the 1923 Great Kantō
earthquake.