Naka-ku, Yokohama — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Naka-ku?

The ward stacks its sights along the shore. Out on the Minato Mirai water the Cosmo Clock 21 wheel turns beside Yokohama Cosmo World, the Yokohama Museum of Art and the CupNoodles Museum Yokohama, while the Gundam Factory Yokohama once towered over the piers nearby. Closer to the old port, Yamashita Park runs beneath the Yokohama Marine Tower, and the Yokohama Archives of History and the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History hold the record of the treaty years.

Up on the bluff stand the Sacred Heart Cathedral and Yokohama Christ Church. The harbour keeps the rest.

What is the history of Naka-ku?

Naka-ku is where Japan met the world by sea. When Yokohama's port opened to foreign trade in 1859, the treaty settlement, its warehouses and its consulates took root on exactly this stretch of shore, and Chinese merchants who followed the trade built the Chinatown that still fills its streets. Foreign settlers climbed the Yamate bluff and raised churches there, among them the Sacred Heart Cathedral and Yokohama Christ Church.

The Yokohama Archives of History keep those first treaty papers. Trade made the ward.

Where is Naka-ku?

Naka-ku fronts the harbour at the centre of Yokohama, its flat reclaimed shore around Minato Mirai and Yamashita Park rising south to the wooded Yamate bluff and the Nogeyama hill.