Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery

The Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery is one of the most evocative historic sites in the city, a wooded hillside on the Yamate ridge where more than four thousand foreign residents from dozens of countries lie buried. Its origins reach back to the very opening of Japan: after Commodore Perry's expedition and the opening of Yokohama as a treaty port in 1859, land was set aside on the Bluff for the graves of foreigners, and the cemetery grew alongside the international community that built the modern port. Walking its terraced paths is, in effect, walking through the biography of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Yokohama.

The graves themselves are the attraction. Weathered headstones, Celtic crosses, obelisks and family monuments climb the slope beneath old trees, their inscriptions in English, French, German, Russian and other languages recording merchants, missionaries, diplomats, engineers, teachers and sailors who came to Japan and never left. Among them are figures who genuinely shaped the country's modernisation—foreign advisers who helped build railways, lighthouses, newspapers and schools during the Meiji era—so the cemetery doubles as a memorial to the foreign contribution to Japan's opening to the world.

There is real poignancy in the place. Many stones mark young lives cut short by disease or accident in a distant land, and some commemorate whole families. The setting—quiet, green and slightly melancholy, with glimpses of the harbour through the trees—gives it an atmosphere quite unlike anywhere else in bustling Yokohama. A small museum near the entrance explains the cemetery's history and the stories of some of those buried here, and the volunteer-run Friends of the Cemetery help fund its upkeep.

Because it is an active, fragile heritage site rather than a park, access to the interior is managed carefully. The grounds are generally opened to visitors on weekends and holidays from spring through autumn, when a modest donation is requested to support conservation; at other times you can view the graves from the perimeter paths. Please treat it with the respect due a working cemetery.

The visiting experience is contemplative and free of charge apart from the requested donation. Allow around forty minutes to wander the open sections and visit the museum. The terrain is steep and uneven, so sturdy shoes help and full wheelchair access is limited. In spring the cherry trees soften the slopes and in autumn the maples colour the hillside.

The cemetery sits at the heart of the Yamate district, a short walk from Berrick Hall, the Ehrismann Residence, the Diplomat's House and Harbour View Park, so it fits naturally into a walking tour of old foreign Yokohama. To reach it, take the Minatomirai Line to Motomachi-Chukagai Station and climb into Yamate along Yamate-hondori, about ten minutes on foot, or approach from JR Ishikawacho Station in similar time. Come on a clear weekend afternoon when the gates are open to experience one of the most atmospheric and historically resonant corners of the city.