Kobe

Kobe's harbour has been used since at least the 8th century, when the port of Owada no Tomari lay here, and in 1180 Taira no Kiyomori briefly moved the imperial capital to Fukuhara, on the site of the modern city, before the court returned to Kyoto. For most of the following centuries it was a modest place of fishing villages and coastal shipping in Settsu province, overshadowed by Osaka.

Everything changed on 1 January 1868, when the port opened to foreign trade under the treaties that ended Japan's seclusion. A foreign settlement was laid out by the shore, merchants from Britain, the United States, Germany, China and India established firms, and their houses spread up the hill at Kitano. Shipbuilding and engineering followed — Kawasaki's yard opened in the 1880s — and by the early 20th century Kobe was among the busiest ports in Asia, the point where many Japanese emigrants left for Brazil and Hawaii. Air raids in 1945 burned much of the city.

Postwar Kobe rebuilt outwards, cutting down hills to make the artificial islands of Port Island and Rokko Island. On 17 January 1995 the Great Hanshin earthquake struck directly beneath the region, killing more than 6,000 people, most of them in Kobe, destroying tens of thousands of buildings and wrecking the port's quays. Reconstruction took years and reshaped the waterfront; the port never regained its former rank among the world's container harbours, and the city turned towards medical research, aviation and tourism.

Kobe's identity is built on having looked outward for longer than most of Japan. Western confectionery, bread, coffee, tailoring and shoemaking took root here in the late 19th century and are still local specialities; jazz took root here early, and the city has kept a jazz festival every October since 1981 and a set of long-running clubs. The Chinese community of Nankinmachi, the Indian trading families, the Korean population and the Kobe Mosque, built in 1935 as the first in the country, all date from the port years.

The 1995 earthquake is the other defining fact. It is marked every 17 January with lanterns and a moment of silence, the Luminarie lights each December began as a memorial, and a museum explains the disaster in detail. Volunteering in Japan is often traced to the response, and the city treats disaster preparedness as a civic subject.

Sport and fashion complete the picture. Vissel Kobe play football at Noevir Stadium and the city hosted matches in the 2002 World Cup and the 2019 Rugby World Cup; Kobe styles itself a fashion city, with design schools and a long clothing trade. Locals are regarded within Kansai as more reserved than Osakans and less formal than Kyotoites, and they are attached to the idea of a city where the mountains and the sea are both ten minutes away.

About 1.5 million people live in Kobe, making it one of Japan's largest cities, although its population has been falling since the earthquake as families move to cheaper suburbs and to Akashi and Osaka. The built-up area is unusually shaped: only a few kilometres wide between the shore and the mountains, and stretched some 30 kilometres along the coast, with residential new towns built on flattened hills inland and on the reclaimed islands.

The port remains a large employer, handling containers for western Japan, alongside Kawasaki Heavy Industries, shipbuilding, steel and food processing. Port Island holds a cluster of hospitals, biomedical research institutes and a supercomputer centre, developed deliberately after 1995 to diversify the economy. Sake brewing continues at Nada, and many residents commute to Osaka in under half an hour.

Daily life runs along the east-west rail lines. Shopping is done in the arcades and under the station viaducts, schoolchildren ride the Hankyu and Hanshin trains, and weekends mean the mountain, the harbour front or a trip across to Awaji Island. The ageing of the population, empty houses in the older hillside districts and the long-term future of the port are the standing local issues, and the anniversary of the earthquake is observed across the city each winter.

Kobe beef is the name that travels. It is certified meat from Tajima cattle raised in Hyogo prefecture and graded strictly for marbling; served as steak on a griddle, as sukiyaki or shabu-shabu, it is expensive, and restaurants display certificates showing the animal's identification number. Less exalted Hyogo wagyu is common and much cheaper.

The everyday food is more mixed. Sobameshi, fried noodles chopped into rice on a hot plate, came out of the factory districts of Nagata; akashiyaki, soft egg-rich batter balls with octopus dipped in broth, come from neighbouring Akashi and are sold across the city. Nankinmachi supplies steamed pork buns, dumplings and roast meats to be eaten standing in the square, and Kobe's Chinese restaurants are among the oldest in Japan.

The port also made Kobe a city of bread, cake and coffee. European bakers and confectioners who settled after 1868 founded firms that still trade, bread and cakes are still a local speciality, and Kitano is full of small patisseries. Baumkuchen, chocolate and butter biscuits are typical gifts to take home.

To drink, Nada is the point: the hard miyamizu spring water, Hyogo's Yamada Nishiki rice and cold winters from the mountains produce a dry, firm sake, and the breweries near the coast keep museums and tasting rooms. Arima adds its own drinks made with carbonated spring water, and the hills east of the city grow grapes for local wine.