Where the name Kannai comes from, what stood here before the station, and what you can still spot on a walk today. Then the events near the station that we have checked on the official pages.
Kannai literally means inside the checkpoint. When Yokohama opened to international trade in 1859, the Tokugawa government created districts for foreign residents and Japanese merchants. Guarded checkpoints controlled access to the new port. One stood at Yoshidabashi Bridge, the principal entrance from inland Yokohama. The port side became known as Kannai, while the land beyond the checkpoint was called Kangai, or outside the gate. The checkpoints disappeared in 1871, but the names survived.
Walk from Kannai Station's north exit toward Yoshidabashi. Beyond the old boundary lay Yoshida Shinden, farmland reclaimed from an inlet by 1667. The low ground between the Ooka and Nakamura rivers had once been coastal water, then rice fields and agricultural settlements. After the port opened, shops, homes, and entertainment districts gradually replaced the farms.
Cross toward Bashamichi and the harbor, and you enter the former international trading district. Today, nothing prevents pedestrians from moving freely between the two sides. Yet the location of the bridge still reveals how a guarded entrance once divided the emerging port city from the surrounding town.
→ Walk to Yoshidabashi Bridge from Kannai Station's north exit. On one side are Bashamichi and the former foreign settlement; on the other are the shopping streets of Isezakicho. The former checkpoint is now a busy connection between neighborhoods.
Sources (in Japanese): 横浜市・関内・関外地区の成り立ち, 神奈川県立図書館・横濱吉田橋ヨリ馬車道之真景
Much of the flat ground around Kannai Station was once coastal water or reclaimed farmland. The area now occupied by Yokohama Park belonged to the former Otaya Shinden agricultural development, while the original Yokohama village stood on a coastal sandbar closer to the harbor. After the port opened in 1859, the shogunate transformed this landscape into a planned trading settlement. Foreign and Japanese commercial districts were separated, and a customs and administrative office was established near the present Kanagawa Prefectural Government building.
Walk from Kannai Station toward the waterfront along Bashamichi. This street became known for the horse-drawn carriages used by foreign residents and merchants. After a devastating fire in 1866, improvements to the street network helped shape the modern port district. Continue toward Nihon Odori, the broad avenue that marked the boundary between the foreign settlement and the Japanese commercial area.
Trading houses, warehouses, government offices, and merchants' shops eventually replaced the farms and coastal shallows. Modern banks and office buildings now occupy much of the district, but its broad avenues and former commercial streets still reveal the carefully planned geography of 19th-century Yokohama.
→ Follow Bashamichi past historic buildings and gas lamps, then continue to Nihon Odori and the Kanagawa Prefectural Government area. These streets preserve the layout of Yokohama's early international trading district.
Sources (in Japanese): 横浜市・中区の生い立ち, 馬車道商店街・横浜開港と馬車道の歴史
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We list events we could confirm on the official page or official Instagram of the venue or organiser. Details can change, tickets sell out and venues close, so check the official page before you go. Distances are straight-line and travel times are rough estimates. Photos show the venue or its surroundings, not the event itself. Titles and descriptions are our own translations from Japanese. This site contains affiliate links (ads).