Yokohama Travel Guide

Yokohama's iconic waterfront district, dominated by the 296-metre Landmark Tower — Japan's second-tallest building — and the historic Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse complex. The area blends gleaming modern towers, Ferris wheels, and harbourfront promenades into one of Japan's most photogenic city skylines, especially at night when the entire waterfront glitters with reflections on the bay.

Japan's largest Chinatown and one of the largest in the world, with over 600 restaurants, food stalls, and shops packed into 0.2 sq km. Yokohama Chinatown has been the hub of the city's Chinese community since the 1860s. The narrow lanes are lined with ornate red-and-gold gateways, paper lanterns, and the irresistible scent of dim sum, char siu pork, and freshly steamed buns.

A 175,000-square-metre traditional Japanese landscape garden built by silk merchant Hara Sankei in 1906. The garden is dotted with 17 historical buildings relocated from Kamakura, Kyoto, and Gifu — including a spectacular three-storey pagoda that appears on Yokohama's tourism materials. The grounds are divided into an outer garden open to the public and a more intimate inner garden with a pond, tea house, and seasonal blooms.

An interactive museum celebrating Momofuku Ando's invention of instant ramen in 1958 — one of the most consequential food innovations of the 20th century. Visitors can create their own custom Cup Noodles (choose soup, noodles, and four toppings) to take home, assemble their own chicken ramen from scratch in a hands-on workshop, and explore the history of instant noodle development from the original Nissin Chicken Ramen to today's space ramen.

Yokohama's beloved 750-metre harbourfront promenade, opened in 1930 on reclaimed land from the Great Kanto Earthquake rubble. The park is famous for the Hikawa Maru — a 1930 Japanese ocean liner permanently moored at the park — and for its uninterrupted views across Yokohama Bay toward the Yokohama Bay Bridge. The park leads directly into the adjacent Motomachi shopping street and Chinatown.

One of Japan's top modern and contemporary art museums, with a permanent collection of 14,000 works spanning photography, prints, paintings, and sculpture. The Kenzo Tange-designed building (1989) itself is a masterpiece of postmodern Japanese architecture, with a vast atrium entrance hall and geometric glass-and-concrete facade. The museum hosts major international blockbuster exhibitions alongside outstanding shows of Japanese 20th-century masters.

The former foreign settlement of Yokohama, perched on a hillside above the harbour. Western-style Meiji and Taisho-era villas, churches, and parks preserve the atmosphere of 19th-century treaty-port Yokohama when the city was the gateway for Western trade. The adjacent Motomachi shopping street — Yokohama's most elegant — has been favoured by well-dressed locals since the 1950s.

The Yokohama Ramen Museum (Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum) is Japan's first food-themed amusement park, recreating the atmosphere of 1950s Tokyo in an underground maze housing 8 famous ramen shops from across Japan. Each ramen style — Hakata tonkotsu, Sapporo miso, Kitakata shoyu — is represented by its most famous regional restaurant, rotating on a 6-month schedule to keep the line-up fresh.