View Yokohama from Nogeyama

Yokohama City Mount Fuji Photo Print

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The best point of vantage to view Yokohama from is Nogeyama, just behind Sakuragichō Station. It affords a fine view of the city and the harbor, and in itself is a charming little park, one of the city's favorite haunts. Hard by is Kamonyama, a hill adorned with cherry trees, on which stands the somewhat uncouth statue of Lord Ii, the courageous Prime Minister of the Shōgunate who opened the port to foreign intercourse in spite of the fiery opposition of the reactionary party. Below, in the busy, commercial and shopping district run the famous streets of Honchō, Motomachi, Benten-dōri and Isezakichō, which by day and night attract great throngs of shoppers, saunterers and amusement seekers, not only from the rest of the city but from districts far away, as far in fact as Tokyo on the one side and on the other, Kamakura, or even Hakone. They abound in department stores, theaters and amusement houses of all sorts dear to the hearts of youths and flappers. Yokohama's dance-halls are by no means the least of its attractions.

As Yokohama is an irresistible magnet to the numerous smaller towns lying around, the latter in their turn exercise the same magnetic power over Yokohama. It is the dream of all Yokohama boys and girls to spend their week-end at some spot among the rural scenery, away from the port's bustle, say, at Kamakura or Hakone. But Yokohama itself abounds in beautiful places, of which Negishi, with its famous race-course and golf links (near the Bluff), and Sugita plum garden (at the tramcar terminus of Sugita), Tsurumi (4.7 miles from Yokohama Station) with its Sojiji Temple and Kagetsuen Garden, are most frequently mentioned. In fact, one is advised to make a temporary home at Yokohama, from which to visit the cardinal centers of business and pleasure, for here there are complete facilities of communications over land and water, and the accommodation afforded by Japanese and foreign-style hotels of various grades is as good as the best anywhere. Yokohama has many sides, its serious dignified side, as in the upper walks of the Bluff, commanding a grand view of the land and seascape, and its hectic side as din the gaiety of Isezakichō and vicinity.

Yokohama 1923 Earthquakes

Every newcomer to Yokohama will be told the tragic story of 1923. The old Yokohama was wiped clean off the map. At the first shock of the earthquakes most of the weaker houses crashed to the ground, and the rest of the stronger houses were destroyed by the fires which broke out everywhere and raged for three days on end. Altogether 21,384 persons were killed, 278,388 (or 64 per cent. of the whole population) lost their homes, and ¥904,000,000 worth of property went up in smoke.

Of all this tragedy, however, one scarcely sees any trace today. Unless you go out of your way to look for them, you will never notice the scars of 1923. No former resident of Yokohama, who left it in the pre-Earthquake days, if he returned today, could believe that anything like such an earthquake had ever happened, and he would be greatly surprised to find many an improvement upon the old city: roads cleaner and wider, parks smarter and prettier, houses newer, taller and more prosperouslooking, and business brisker and haunts of pleasure gayer, and the people everywhere working as diligently and smiling as happily as ever they did. It all testifies to the dour enterprise of Yokohama's brave children. And Yokohama's spirit is the spirit of Japan, worthy of a city forming the doorway to her Empire.





Yokohama, Japan Photo Print

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Great Japan Cities: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Kobe, Yokohama, Nara

The inevitable process of urban centralization, which has become so evident in recent years is, comparatively speaking, not so pronounced in Japan as in some countries of Europe. One reason is that the population of Japan, principally agricultural, is dispersed all over the land in well-proportioned numbers, and each district with a radius of 10 or 20 miles, is sure to have an urban center of some pretension, so that the rural populations everywhere have little reason to miss city atmosphere. The trouble in Japan, if it is a trouble at all, is in the urbanization of rural districts rather than in the urban centralization of rural populations.





Kyoto: Small Street in the Restaurant and Bar Quarter Photographic Print

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One of the first geographical phrases our schoolboy learns is the "santo" (the three capital cities), namely, Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. After these are pointed out the four interesting cities: Nagoya, Kobe, Yokohama, Nara, each of the latter not only being a notable modern city but having a character of its own, worth describing, as has already been done. There are other fine cities, following close upon the heels of the big seven. Some of them are hardly worthy of mention in a book like this, such, for example, as Yawata and Omuta of Kyūshū, which have attained the city status because of their coalmine and iron-works populations respectively. But there are others which either in age, in historic associations, or in natural beauty, justly rank with the big seven, but we have space to mention only their names, with their respective areas. They are:

Hiroshima (Area 26.9 sq. miles)
Fukuoka (Area 34.1 sq. miles)
Hakodate (Area 7.3 sq. miles)
Kure (Area 18.6 sq. miles)
Sendai (Area 33.8 sq. miles)
Sapporo (Area 9.3 sq. miles)
Kumamoto (Area 17.5 sq. miles)
Kanazawa (Area 7.0 sq. miles)
Otaru (Area 21.9 sq. miles)
Okayama (Area 18.3 sq. miles)
Kagoshima (Area 5.9 sq. miles)
Shizuoka (Area 23.3 sq. miles)
Saseho (Area 19.2 sq. miles)
Niigata (Area 7.8 sq. miles)
Sakai (Area 5.6 sq. miles)
Wakayama (Area 12.5 sq. miles)
Yokosuka (Area 13.2 sq. miles)
Hamamatsu (Area 5.9 sq. miles)
Moji (Area 16.0 sq. miles)
Shimonoseki (Area 6.0 sq. miles)