History
Until 1859, Yokohama was a small fishing village of a few hundred households. Everything about the city as it exists today dates from a single event: the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States (one of several “unequal treaties” signed under pressure following Commodore Perry’s 1853–54 visits), which designated Yokohama one of Japan’s first ports opened to foreign trade after more than two centuries of near-total isolation. The government deliberately chose the sleepy fishing village over the larger, more established nearby post town of Kanagawa-juku, hoping to keep foreign traders at arm’s length from the Tokaido highway — the plan mostly worked, and Yokohama grew explosively around its new foreign settlement instead.
A laboratory for imported everything
Because so much of what entered Japan from the West in the following decades physically arrived through its port, Yokohama became a testing ground for adapting foreign goods and ideas into Japanese life. Japan’s first railway line connected Yokohama to Tokyo’s Shimbashi Station in 1872; the city’s foreign settlement is credited with popularizing (and locally adapting) beer, ice cream, and bread in Japan; and Yokohama’s Chinatown, which grew alongside the foreign settlement from the same 1859 opening, is Japan’s largest today. Yokohama-style ramen, built on a Chinese-noodle base with Japanese adaptations, is often cited as one of the earliest steps in ramen’s evolution into a distinctly Japanese dish.
Yokohama and Tokyo
Yokohama’s relationship with Tokyo, about 30 km north, has always been one of close economic integration and gentle rivalry. It functions as both a major port and industrial city in its own right and, increasingly, as a commuter suburb within the greater Tokyo metropolitan area — a dual identity captured in the fact that Yokohama is Japan’s second-most-populous city despite sitting so close to its most populous one.
Getting there and getting around
Yokohama Station and the Minato Mirai waterfront are about 30 minutes from central Tokyo by train, making the city an easy half-day or full-day trip. Yokohama has its own subway line plus extensive JR and private railway connections; Minato Mirai and Chinatown are both walkable from Yokohama Station or nearby stops.
