Yokohama was designated as a foreign port instead of Kanagawa, which the Tokugawa shogunate feared was too close to the Tokaido, a strategic highway connecting Edo to Nagoya, Kyoto, and Osaka.
Japan's first railway was constructed in 1872 to connect Yokohama to Tokyo, allowing zaibatsu firms to use the port for importing raw materials bound for factories in the growing Keihin Industrial Area.
Yokohama is located on a peninsula facing the western side of Tokyo Bay, 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Tokyo, to which it is connected by a half-dozen railway lines as well as expressways and surface streets.
It grew in significance as a port when, in 1872, the first railroad in Japan connected Yokohama with Shimbashi in Tokyo and in 1889 it was constituted as a city with an area of 5.5 square kilometers and a population of 116,193.
Yokohama has continued to grow ever since, despite two major disasters; one natural and one induced by man. On September 1, 1923, the Kanto Plain was hit by a major earthquake, measuring 7.9 in magnitude on the Japanese scale.
Yokohama was practically obliterated by the seismic shocks, the devastating fires that swept through the city, and the tsunami tidal wave that followed.
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