Yokohama (横浜市)is the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture and, with a population of 3.6 million, Japan’s largest city after Tokyo, located in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshū. Yokohama is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area. Yokohama was a small fishing village until Commodore Matthew Perry and his United States navy [...]

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the port of Yokohama was developed for trading silk, with the main trading partner being Great Britain. Many Western influences first reached Japan in Yokohama, including Japan’s first daily newspaper (1870) and Japan’s first gas-powered street lamps (1872). Japan’s first railway was constructed in the same year to connect [...]

In the late 19th century, the Yokohama city government worked on constructing new harbour facilities, and the first reclamation work was begun in 1899. The work, completed in 1905, was followed by expansion work which ended a year later. Planned by a Japanese architect and a government official, Yorinaka Tsumaki, the current Building No. 2 [...]