1 / 9Chinatown, 600 shops deepPhoto: Syced / CC0
Tap a photo to see it large. 9 photographs, every one credited.
Checked against official sources · updated · Takumi Yamada
Japan’s largest Chinatown — gates, temples and steam everywhere. Grazing beats sitting: one bun, one skewer, one sesame ball at a time.
- Our number 2 for Yokohama, out of ten. It is the first thing we would spend the hours on.
- Short enough to be certain of: 2 hr door to door, so even a tender day works.
- Reachable on foot from the berth, so no timetable can strand you.
- On a 4–6h ashore call our verdict is "Half of it" — chinatown plus the red brick warehouse and kannai fills the window.
- Most shops 10:00–21:00 — busiest 12:00–15:00.
- 2 hr door to door needs a 4-hour call: a 2–3 hour stop cannot hold it. Pick something closer instead.
Why Chinatown, 600 shops deep is famous
Japan's largest Chinatown, and the interpreters who built it
Yokohama's Chinatown grew from the 1859 opening of the port and is now the largest in Japan and among the largest in the world, with around 600 businesses in a few blocks. The gates are placed by direction according to Chinese geomancy, which is why there are so many of them.
More than six hundred shops and restaurants (the city’s figure) in roughly a fifth of a square kilometre — the largest Chinatown in Japan and one of the largest in Asia. It exists because when Britain and Japan tried to trade, neither could read the other, and Chinese clerks could read both.
Japan's largest Chinatown, and it exists for a specific reason: when the port opened in 1859, Western firms and Japanese merchants could not understand each other, but Chinese clerks could read the same characters as the Japanese. The trading houses brought them, they brought their families, and the quarter has never left.
Ten decorated gates mark it. At the centre is Kanteibyo, a temple to Guan Yu — worshipped as the god of commerce because he was famously incapable of breaking a promise, which is a pointed choice for a district built by middlemen.
They can read kanji; the foreigners cannot
The full Kanteibyo temple follows in 1871
Its shumai becomes the Kanto region's signature souvenir
Named Zenrinmon, "good neighbours", when rebuilt in 1989
Do not sit down. Butaman, then shumai, then tanghulu, walking. Fifteen minutes on foot from Osanbashi.
Things worth knowing
- Do not sit down at the first place with an English menu. This is a walking-and-eating district.
- Butaman from a street steamer, then Kiyoken shumai, then tanghulu. In that order.
- Sanma-men — ramen under a thickened vegetable stir-fry — was invented in Yokohama and is on few tourist menus.
- Chinese New Year, late January or February, brings firecrackers and a lion dance through the shops.
- Chukagai中華街 — Chinatown. Yokohama's is simply "the" Chukagai in Japanese.
- Butaman豚まん — Steamed pork bun. Buy it from a steamer on the street, not from a menu.
Where the 2 hr goes
Counted from the moment you step off the gangway, about 30 minutes after the ship arrives. The hour before all-aboard is not in this bar; it is already set aside.
15 minutes each way is the measured figure for 15 min walk, not the optimistic one. If your ship is late, cut the 1 hr 30 min in the middle. Never cut the hour at the end.
Questions people send us
How far is Chinatown from the Yokohama cruise terminal?
About fifteen minutes on foot from Osanbashi Pier, entirely flat. From Daikoku Pier use the cruise-line shuttle or a taxi. From Shinko Pier it is about 25 minutes on foot.
What is worth eating in Yokohama Chinatown?
Eat standing: butaman pork buns from a street steamer, Kiyoken shumai, and tanghulu candied fruit. If you want the genuinely local dish, look for sanma-men — ramen under a thickened stir-fry of pork and bean sprouts, invented in this city and rarely on tourist menus.
Routes that already include it
Each one is a finished day timed from the official timetables, with this stop in it. Read the route rather than assembling it yourself.
What to put beside it
Each of these still lands you back aboard with the hour to spare.
3 hr for bothShumai at Kiyoken
The 1928 shumai (from a company founded in 1908) that every Japanese traveler associates with this city — the main store is at Yokohama Station, and on a port day the shop on Chinatown’s main street (10:00–20:00) is the one on foot.
See the detail 3 hr for bothAriake Harbour chestnut boats
Boat-shaped chestnut cakes that Yokohama gives when it visits anyone — soft, not-too-sweet, and boxed like jewelry.
See the detail
3 hr 30 min for bothOsanbashi decks & Minato Mirai
Your pier is the sight: a whale-back of wooden decks with the full skyline arranged in front.
See the detail