Kobe Former Foreign Settlement
神戸旧居留地
A foreign settlement from the Meiji port-opening period, lined with stone Western-style buildings. Today it is an elegant district of luxury shops and cafés.
The Former Foreign Settlement stretches from south of Sannomiya Station to the coast along Kaigan-dōri. After Kobe opened as a port in 1868, the area was designated a foreign settlement. Its orderly grid of streets still preserves early Showa-era modern Western buildings. These include the No. 38 Building near Daimaru, the national Important Cultural Property “Former Kobe Foreign Settlement Building No. 15,” the Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Building, and the Kobe City Museum (formerly the Yokohama Specie Bank). Most of the interiors have been converted into luxury shops, cafés and restaurants. Strolling is free, and most of the area can be seen in about an hour. The Luminarie, a festival commemorating the Great Hanshin Earthquake, is also held in Higashi-Yūenchi Park and this area. You can connect it with Nankinmachi, Motomachi Shopping Street and Meriken Park into one walking route.
Opening hours
All day (shops approx. 10:00–20:00)
Nearby sights
- Kobe City Museum
- Nankinmachi Chinatown
- Ikuta Shrine
- Meriken Park & Kobe Harborland
- Kitano Ijinkan
- Sorakuen Garden
- Nunobiki Falls
- Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution