The in Naka ward

Naka-ku, Yokohama

is one of the 18 wards of the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the ward had an estimated population of 146,563and a density of 7,080 persons per km². The total area was 20.86 km².-Geography:...

, central Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

 near Yamashita Park is a repository for many precious archive materials on Japan and the foreign connection with Japan since the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. The archives are next to Kaiko Hiroba (Port Opening Square) where Commodore Perry landed to sign the Convention of Kanagawa

Convention of Kanagawa

On March 31, 1854, the or was concluded between Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the U.S. Navy and the Tokugawa shogunate.-Treaty of Peace and Amity :...

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The archives are housed in a newly built annex to the former British Consulate building. The British Consulate building, which replaced the former consulate building destroyed in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake

1923 Great Kanto earthquake

The struck the Kantō plain on the Japanese main island of Honshū at 11:58:44 am JST on September 1, 1923. Varied accounts hold that the duration of the earthquake was between 4 and 10 minutes...

, was completed in 1931 and used as a consulate until 1972. The ground floor of the former consulate building is open to the public and there is a small exhibition room which is free. There are plaques in the consulate commemorating consulate employees who died in the Great Kanto Earthquake as well as British sailors who died during the British Bombardment of Kagoshima

Bombardment of Kagoshima

The Bombardment of Kagoshima, also known as the , took place on 15–17 August 1863 during the Late Tokugawa shogunate. The British Royal Navy was fired on from the coastal batteries near town of Kagoshima and in retaliation bombarded the town...

 in 1863. The British Court for Japan, under the British Supreme Court for China and Japan

British Supreme Court for China and Japan

The British Supreme Court for China and Japan was a court established in the Shanghai International Settlement in 1865 to try cases against British subjects in China and Japan, and from 1883, Korea, under the principles of Extraterritoriality. The court also heard appeals from consular courts in...

 sat in the consulate compound from 1879 to 1900. Prior to that the British Provincial Court for Kanagawa sat in the compound from 1865 to 1878.

The Archives include a museum (Y200 to enter, including access to the reading room) which tells the story of Japan and Yokohama's opening to the West from the arrival of Commodore Perry and his black ships

Black Ships

The Black Ships was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries.In 1543 Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a trade route linking Goa to Nagasaki...

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The reading room downstairs (Y100 to enter) has historic Japanese and English newspapers and books. Materials housed include many of the papers of Ernest Satow, foreign and Japanese newspapers of the Meiji period etc, including, the Japan Daily Herald, the Japan Weekly Mail and Japan Punch. Many of the old newspapers have been copied onto new paper making them very easy to handle. These copies can be accessed directly from the shelves and can be photocopied (Y10 for black and white copies; Y100 for colour copies). There are also collections of various diplomatic papers relating to Japan's foreign relations. A select number of books on Japanese history published by the archives are also available for purchase.

The Yokohama Archives of History are open Tuesday to Sunday.

The archives can be reached from Tokyo by travelling on the JR Tokkaido line to Yokohama, changing to the Negishi line and then alighting at Kannai station from which it is a 10-15 minute walk. You can also change to the subway Minato-Mirai line at Yokohama and alight at the Nihon Odori station from which it is a 2 minute walk to the Archives.

External links

• Official Home Page (Japanese)
• Official Home Page (English)