Kanagawa

Kanagawa stretches from the Tama River on the Tokyo border to the Hakone mountains on the border with Shizuoka, and from Tokyo Bay to the Tanzawa range. Its three designated cities – Yokohama, Kawasaki and Sagamihara – make it the most urbanised prefecture after Tokyo, with more than nine million inhabitants, many of whom commute to the capital.

The prefecture has been at the centre of Japanese history twice. In 1192 Minamoto no Yoritomo established Japan's first warrior government at Kamakura, whose Zen temples, shrine and Great Buddha still recall the age of the samurai. And in the 1850s Kanagawa was where Japan opened to the West: Commodore Perry's ships anchored off Uraga, the treaty of 1854 was signed at Yokohama, and the port of Yokohama, opened in 1859, became the gateway for foreign trade, ideas and technology.

Beyond its cities, Kanagawa offers the beaches and surf of Shonan and the island of Enoshima, the fishing ports and farmland of the Miura Peninsula, the hiking country of Tanzawa and Oyama, and above all Hakone, a volcanic caldera of hot springs, museums and Lake Ashi, part of Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park.

The name comes from Kanagawa-juku, a post station on the Tokaido in what is now Kanagawa Ward of Yokohama. After the port opened in 1859, the Kanagawa magistracy administered the treaty port; in 1868 it became Kanagawa Prefecture. The Sagami part of Ashigara Prefecture was added in 1876, giving roughly today's borders, and in 1893 the three Tama districts were transferred to Tokyo. Most of the prefecture was the province of Sagami; the north-east, including Yokohama and Kawasaki, belonged to Musashi.

The east of the prefecture is made up of the Tama hills, the Sagamihara terrace and the lowlands along Tokyo Bay, where Yokohama and Kawasaki have reclaimed large areas for ports and industry. The Miura Peninsula divides Tokyo Bay from Sagami Bay, whose shore, Shonan, runs west from Kamakura and Enoshima to Oiso. The Sagami River drains the centre from Lake Sagami to the sea. In the west, the Tanzawa mountains rise to Hiru-ga-take (1,673 m), and in the south-west the Hakone volcano, with its caldera, central cones and Lake Ashi, forms the gateway to the Izu Peninsula and Mount Fuji.

Kanagawa has a mild humid subtropical climate moderated by the sea. The coasts of Shonan and Miura have warm winters with little frost, while the Tanzawa mountains and Hakone are cooler and wetter, with occasional winter snow and frequent summer mist. Summers are hot and humid, with typhoons in late summer and autumn.

In 1180 Minamoto no Yoritomo made Kamakura his headquarters, and from 1192 it was the seat of the shogunate, the first government of the warrior class. The Hojo regents ruled from there until 1333. From the late fifteenth century the Later Hojo clan controlled the Kanto from Odawara Castle until Toyotomi Hideyoshi's siege of 1590. Under the Tokugawa, the Tokaido ran through Kanagawa with post stations such as Totsuka, Fujisawa and Odawara, and the Hakone checkpoint controlled traffic to and from Edo.

Perry's fleet appeared off Uraga in 1853 and the Convention of Kanagawa was signed at Yokohama in 1854. Yokohama opened as a treaty port in 1859 and grew into Japan's leading international port; Japan's first railway linked it with Tokyo in 1872. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 had its epicentre under Sagami Bay and devastated Yokohama. After 1945 Kanagawa became home to major US military bases, including Yokosuka, while the Keihin industrial zone made Kawasaki and Yokohama centres of heavy industry.

Kanagawa's culture spans the warrior traditions of Kamakura, the cosmopolitan port culture of Yokohama – with Japan's largest Chinatown, Western-style residences and jazz clubs – and the beach and surf culture of Shonan. Hakone's craftsmen and Kamakura's lacquer carvers maintain traditions going back centuries, and the old pilgrimage to Mount Oyama was a popular excursion from Edo.

Kanagawa's food reflects its ports and coasts: Chinese-Japanese classics from Yokohama, Western dishes born in its hotels, and seafood from Sagami Bay and the Miura Peninsula.

Kanagawa is one of Japan's leading industrial prefectures. The Keihin industrial zone on Tokyo Bay concentrates steel, petrochemicals, energy and logistics around the ports of Yokohama and Kawasaki, while inland corridors host car manufacturing, electronics and major research and development centres; Nissan has its headquarters in Yokohama. Services, retail and IT have grown with the population, and tourism centres on Yokohama, Kamakura, Enoshima and Hakone. Agriculture and fisheries on the Miura Peninsula supply vegetables and tuna to the metropolitan area.