Yokohama

Yokohama is a very big city in Japan. It is by the sea, close to Tokyo.

Millions of people live there, and big ships sail into its port.

Yokohama is the capital of Kanagawa Prefecture, in Japan's Kanto region. Universalis calls it Japan's second city and says it lies about 30 kilometers from Tokyo, on the southwest side of Tokyo Bay.

Preliminary results of Japan's census of 1 October 2025 counted 3,754,840 people in Yokohama, a little fewer than the 3,777,491 counted in 2020.

Census counts on City Population: 3,307,136 (1995), 3,579,628 (2005), 3,724,844 (2015), 3,777,491 (2020) and 3,754,840 (1 October 2025, preliminary), out of 9,193,657 in Kanagawa Prefecture in 2025.

Universalis (Raphaël Languillon-Aussel) says Yokohama is part of the Tokyo metropolitan area and, with the capital and cities such as Chiba, forms a huge built-up region of 33 million people.

Look at the city lights across the water! There is a very tall tower, and a giant Ferris wheel lit up with colors.

On the right are long red brick buildings.

The photo was taken from Yamashita Park at night on 9 September 2012, looking across the water to the Minato Mirai district. Wikidata's points place three landmarks in that direction: the Yokohama Landmark Tower, 295.8 meters tall, about 1.9 kilometers away; the Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris wheel, 112 meters high, about 1.6 kilometers away; and the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, about 0.9 kilometers away.

The tall tower stands at the left, the glowing wheel in the middle and the long red brick buildings at the right.

Wikidata: Yokohama Landmark Tower, a commercial complex and skyscraper, 295.8 m, opened 16 July 1993; Cosmo Clock 21, a Ferris wheel 112 m high with a 100 m diameter (1989); Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, dated to the 1910s, with an opening date of 12 April 2002.

From Yamashita Park (opened 15 March 1930) the three lie 1.92 km west-northwest, 1.57 km northwest and 0.94 km northwest, matching their order from left to right in the photo.

Yokohama has a busy port and many factories. People there have made ships, cars and computers.

It also has a big Chinatown, which has become a place to visit and have fun.

Universalis calls Yokohama one of Japan's main industrial centers. After 1945 came steelmaking, petrochemicals and shipbuilding, then cars in the 1960s and electronics and computing in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2010 the government named it one of Japan's four 'smart communities', testing smart energy networks.

Its Chinatown, where dock and warehouse workers and merchants lived around 1900, is the largest in Japan and has become a place for leisure.

Universalis traces the post-war succession of steel, petrochemicals and shipbuilding (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, among the city's biggest employers), cars in the 1960s and electronics and computing in the 1990s-2000s, then digital and new-energy technology: in 2010 Yokohama became one of four government-labelled smart communities, with prototypes run by Toshiba.

It calls the city open to the world and twinned with many others, and says its chukagai (Chinatown), once home to dock workers and merchants, is the largest in Japan.