57-730: Kawasaki ( 川崎市 , Kawasaki-shi ) , [kawasaki] is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture , Japan, one of the main cities of the Greater Tokyo Area and Keihin Industrial Area . It is the second most populated city in Kanagawa Prefecture after Yokohama , and the eighth most populated city in Japan (including the Tokyo Metropolitan Area). As of October 1, 2017,
114-488: A 20 mm hit to the chest and died 30 minutes later. Tail gunner Sgt. John Houston destroyed one attacker. The lead bomber, Consolidated B-32-20-CF Dominator , 42-108532 , "Hobo Queen II", piloted by 1st Lt. James Klein, was not seriously damaged but the second Consolidated B-32-35-CF Dominator , 42-108578 , lost an engine, had the upper turret knocked out of action, and partially lost rudder control. Both bombers landed at Yontan Airfield just past ~1800 hrs. having survived
171-509: A canal system on the right bank of the Tama for irrigating the fields, which in some cases still runs through the densely built-up city. On the long-distance Kaidō roads Tōkaidō and Nakaharakaidō built by Edo - Bakufu , stations were built in the area of what would later become Kawasaki, which increased its importance. The Kawasaki station (Kawasaki-juku, near today's Kawasaki station) on the Tōkaidō
228-606: A further increase in population density can be expected. According, to the Köppen Climate Classification , it is a humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ). Kawasaki is located on the right bank of the Tama River , which flows into the Tokyo Bay here. The city lies like a narrow band between Tokyo in the northeast and Yokohama in the southwest. The city connects the two major cities and is part of
285-510: A large X pattern centered in Tokyo's densely populated working class district near the docks in both Koto and Chūō city wards on the water; later aircraft simply aimed near this flaming X. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general conflagration , which would have been classified as a firestorm but for prevailing winds gusting at 17 to 28 mph (27 to 45 km/h). Approximately 15.8 square miles (4,090 ha) of
342-675: A million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 83,793 dead and 40,918 wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Historian Richard Rhodes put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million. These casualty and damage figures could be low; Mark Selden wrote in Japan Focus : The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing
399-457: A municipality to be designated as a city: The designation is approved by the prefectural governor and the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications . A city can theoretically be demoted to a town or village when it fails to meet any of these conditions, but such a demotion has not happened to date. The least populous city, Utashinai, Hokkaido , has a population of three thousand, while
456-400: A rough range of 75,000 to 200,000 deaths. Donald L. Miller , citing Knox Burger , stated that there were "at least 100,000" Japanese deaths and "about one million" injured. The entire bombing campaign against Japan killed more than 300,000 people and injured an additional 400,000, mostly civilians. After the war, Tokyo struggled to rebuild. In 1945 and 1946, the city received a share of
513-570: A target of the first mainland bombing by the US military in 1942, followed by multiple bombings, partly due to the city's heavy and chemical industrial complex supplying the war efforts in Asia and the Pacific. On April 15, 1945, large parts of the area around the train station and the industrial area at the port were destroyed by air raids. Since the 1950s, residential areas for commuters have been created in
570-541: A town in the same prefecture, Otofuke, Hokkaido , has over forty thousand. Under the Act on Special Provisions concerning Merger of Municipalities ( 市町村の合併の特例等に関する法律 , Act No. 59 of 2004) , the standard of 50,000 inhabitants for the city status has been eased to 30,000 if such population is gained as a result of a merger of towns and/or villages , in order to facilitate such mergers to reduce administrative costs. Many municipalities gained city status under this eased standard. On
627-594: Is a local administrative unit in Japan . Cities are ranked on the same level as towns ( 町 , machi ) and villages ( 村 , mura ) , with the difference that they are not a component of districts ( 郡 , gun ) . Like other contemporary administrative units, they are defined by the Local Autonomy Law of 1947. Article 8 of the Local Autonomy Law sets the following conditions for
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#1732798390892684-476: Is crossed by a network of canals (Tama Canal, Suehiro Canal, Chidori Canal, Yakō Canal, Daishi Canal, Mizue Canal, Shiohama Canal, Iriesaki Canal, Asano Canal, Ikegami Canal, Minami-Watarida Canal, Tanabe Canal, Shiraishi Canal and the Sakai Canal). In addition, the historic Nikaryō Yōsui canal still exists in the hinterland. Per Japanese census data, the population of Kawasaki has seen sustained growth over
741-403: Is difficult to argue whether the raids were illegal under the international laws of the time. 16–17 February 1945: carrier-based aircraft , including dive bombers , escorted by Hellcat fighters attacked Tokyo. Over two days, over 1,500 American planes and hundreds of Japanese planes were in the air. "By the end of 17 February, more than five hundred Japanese planes, both on the ground and in
798-499: The 302nd Naval Air Group at Atsugi and the Yokosuka Air Group that made 10 gunnery passes. Japanese IJNAS aces Sadamu Komachi and Saburō Sakai were part of this attack. The B-32 piloted by 1st Lt. John R. Anderson, was hit at 20,000 feet; cannon fire knocked out the number two (port inner) engine, and three crew were injured, including Sgt. Anthony J. Marchione, 19, of the 20th Reconnaissance Squadron , who took
855-604: The Greater Tokyo Area , the largest and most densely populated urban areas in the world. The eastern area along the coast of Tokyo Bay is a densely populated industrial zone, part of the Keihin Industrial Zone . In contrast, the western districts in the Tama Hills consist largely of residential areas for commuters in the Tokyo / Yokohama region . Kawasaki has seven wards ( ku ): [REDACTED] In
912-493: The House of Representatives (Japan) , Kawasaki comprises the constituencies Kanagawa 9 (Tama and Asao wards), 10 (Kawasaki and Saiwai wards) and 18 (Nakahara and Takatsu wards) and 19 (Miyamae ward, with Tsuzuki ward, Yokohama ), following changes since the last general election in 2021. In the 2021 election, the three seats went unchanged to Liberal Democrats Kazunori Tanaka and Daishirō Yamagiwa , and ex-Democrat Hirofumi Ryū of
969-468: The Mariana Islands . B-29 raids from those islands began on 17 November 1944, and lasted until 15 August 1945, the day of Japanese surrender . Over half of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the city's output in half. Some modern post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and
1026-652: The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line , the city of Kisarazu , located on the opposite side of the Tokyo Bay in Chiba Prefecture , also became a neighbor in December 1997. Two rivers cross the urban area. The Tama unites with the tributaries Misawa, Yamashita, Gotanda, Nikaryō main river and Hirase; Katahira, Asao, Shimpukuji, Arima, E, Shibu and Yagami flow into the Tsurumi. The land on the coast of the city
1083-763: The Twentieth Air Force operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn under XX Bomber Command , but these could not reach Tokyo. Operations from the Northern Mariana Islands commenced in November 1944 after the XXI Bomber Command was activated there. The high-altitude bombing attacks using general-purpose bombs were observed to be ineffective by USAAF leaders due to high winds—later discovered to be
1140-638: The jet stream —which carried the bombs off target. Between May and September 1943, bombing trials were conducted on the Japanese Village set-piece target, located at the Dugway Proving Grounds . These trials demonstrated the effectiveness of incendiary bombs against wood-and-paper buildings, and resulted in Curtis LeMay 's ordering the bombers to change tactics to utilize these munitions against Japan. The first such raid
1197-451: The "city code" ( shisei , 市制) of 1888 during the "Great Meiji mergers" ( Meiji no daigappei , 明治の大合併) of 1889. The -shi replaced the previous urban districts /"wards/cities" (-ku) that had existed as primary subdivisions of prefectures besides rural districts (-gun) since 1878. Initially, there were 39 cities in 1889: only one in most prefectures, two in a few (Yamagata, Toyama, Osaka, Hyōgo, Fukuoka), and none in some – Miyazaki became
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#17327983908921254-591: The 1950s. Between 1948 and 1951 the ashes of 105,400 people killed in the attacks on Tokyo were interred in Yokoamicho Park in Sumida Ward . A memorial to the raids was opened in the park in March 2001. The park has a list of names of people who died due to the bombings is made based on applications from bereaved families; it had 81,273 names as of March 2020. Bereaved families can submit applications to
1311-694: The Constitutional Democratic Party. Fujitsu 's Main Branch is located in Nakahara-ku . It was formerly Fujitsu's headquarters. Kawasaki has several factories and development bases of the companies of heavy industry (e.g., JFE Group , Nippon Oil Corporation ) and high technology ( Fujitsu , NEC Corporation , Toshiba , Dell Japan and Sigma Corporation ). Kawasaki is twinned with the following cities in Japan and worldwide. Cities of Japan A city ( 市 , shi )
1368-629: The Inage clan has expanded here. Around the Heiken-ji Buddhist temple (better known as Kawasaki-Daishi), founded in 1128, a monzen-machi, a busy district for the supply of pilgrims, soon emerged. Between the Kamakura period and Sengoku period , smaller feudal lords ruled the area until it finally came under the control of the Later Hōjō clan . In 1611, Koizumi Jidayū had Nikaryō Yōsui built,
1425-739: The Tama and the coast of the Bay of Tokyo have also changed in historical times, so that large parts of the urban area are geologically young. With the introduction of the Ritsuryō legal system, the area came to the Musashi Province in the 7th century. In the Nara period , the center of the Tachibana district was probably in the area of today's Takatsu district. Since the Heian period , the domain of
1482-876: The Tokyo Air Raid. In 2007, 112 members of the Association for the Bereaved Families of the Victims of the Tokyo Air Raids brought a class action against the Japanese government, demanding an apology and 1.232 billion yen in compensation. Their suit charged that the Japanese government invited the raid by failing to end the war earlier, and then failed to help the civilian victims of the raids while providing considerable support to former military personnel and their families. The plaintiffs' case
1539-562: The United States. Launched at longer range than planned when the task force encountered a Japanese picket boat , all of the attacking aircraft either crashed or ditched short of the airfields designated for landing. One aircraft landed in the neutral Soviet Union where the crew was interned, but then smuggled over the border into Iran on 11 May 1943. Two crews were captured by the Japanese in occupied China. Three crewmen from these groups were later executed. The key development for
1596-518: The air, had been lost, and Japan's aircraft works had been badly hit. The Americans lost eighty planes." 18 August 1945: The last U.S. air combat casualty of the Pacific War occurred during mission 230 A-8, when two Consolidated B-32 Dominators of the 386th Bomb Squadron , 312th Bomb Group , launched from Yontan Airfield , Okinawa, for a photo reconnaissance run over Tokyo, Japan . Both bombers were attacked by several Japanese fighters of both
1653-722: The bombing of Japan was the B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber , which had an operational range of 3,250 nautical miles (3,740 mi; 6,020 km) and was capable of attacking at high altitude above 30,000 feet (9,100 m), where enemy defenses were very weak. Almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by the B-29. Once Allied ground forces had captured islands sufficiently close to Japan, airfields were built on those islands (particularly Saipan and Tinian ) and B-29s could reach Japan for bombing missions. The initial raids were carried out by
1710-511: The city has an estimated population of 1,503,690, with 716,470 households , and a population density of 10,000 persons per km. Kawasaki is the only city in Japan with more than one million inhabitants that is not a prefectural capital. The total area is 142.70 km (55.10 sq mi). Archaeological evidence from the Japanese Paleolithic and Jōmon period can only be found in the northwest Tama Hills . The course of
1767-554: The city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died. A grand total of 282 of the 339 B-29s launched for "Meetinghouse" made it to the target, 27 of which were lost due to being shot down by Japanese air defenses, mechanical failure, or being caught in updrafts caused by the fires. The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II, greater than Dresden , Hamburg , Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events. Damage to Tokyo's heavy industry
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1824-399: The death toll, seems to be arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors' accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants per square mile (400 inhabitants/ha) and peak levels as high as 135,000 inhabitants per square mile (520 inhabitants/ha), the highest density of any industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to
1881-504: The eastern areas of the city. The districts bombed were home to 1.2 million people. Tokyo police recorded 267,171 buildings destroyed, which left more than one million people homeless. Emperor Hirohito 's tour of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March 1945 was the beginning of his involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender six months later. The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over
1938-594: The ensuing mass loss of civilian life. The first raid on Tokyo was the Doolittle Raid on 18 April 1942. In the raid, sixteen B-25 Mitchells were launched from the USS ; Hornet at Yokohama and Tokyo, and then flew to airfields in China . The raid was retaliation against the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . The raid did little damage to Japan's war capability but was a significant propaganda victory for
1995-599: The fighter defenses were ineffective at night. LeMay ordered all defensive guns but the tail gun removed from the B-29s so that the aircraft would be lighter and use less fuel. On the night of 9–10 March 1945, 334 B-29s took off to raid with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo. The bombs were mostly the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 napalm -carrying M-69 incendiary bomblets at an altitude of 2,000–2,500 ft (610–760 m). The M-69s punched through thin roofing material or landed on
2052-579: The government of Tokyo to have names of victims added to the list. After the war, Japanese author Katsumoto Saotome , a survivor of the 10 March 1945 firebombing, helped start a library about the raid in Koto Ward called the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage . The library contains documents and literature about the raid plus survivor accounts collected by Saotome and the Association to Record
2109-488: The ground; in either case they ignited 3–5 seconds later, throwing out a jet of flaming napalm globs. A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries were also dropped: the M-47 was a 100-pound (45 kg) jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. In the first two hours of the raid, 226 of the attacking aircraft unloaded their bombs to overwhelm the city's fire defenses. The first B-29s to arrive dropped bombs in
2166-448: The last air combat of the Pacific war. The following day, propellers were removed from Japanese aircraft as part of the surrender agreement. Marchione was buried on Okinawa on 19 August, his body being returned to his Pottstown, Pennsylvania home on 18 March 1949. He was interred in St. Aloysius Old Cemetery with full military honors. "Hobo Queen II" was dismantled at Yonton Airfield following
2223-595: The last prefecture to contain its first city in 1924. In Okinawa -ken and Hokkai-dō which were not yet fully equal prefectures in the Empire, major urban settlements remained organized as urban districts until the 1920s: Naha-ku and Shuri-ku, the two urban districts of Okinawa were only turned into Naha -shi and Shuri-shi in May 1921, and six -ku of Hokkaidō were converted into district-independent cities in August 1922. By 1945,
2280-509: The national reconstruction budget roughly proportional to its amount of bombing damage (26.6%), but in successive years Tokyo saw its share dwindle. By 1949, Tokyo was given only 10.9% of the budget; at the same time there was runaway inflation devaluing the money. Occupation authorities such as Joseph Dodge stepped in and drastically cut back on Japanese government rebuilding programs, focusing instead on simply improving roads and transportation. Tokyo did not experience fast economic growth until
2337-457: The northeast, Kawasaki borders the Special wards of Tokyo (starting at Tokyo Bay) Ōta and Setagaya , in the northwest the cities (-shi) belonging to Tokyo Prefecture (-shi) Komae , Chofu , Machida , Inagi , Tama enclose the place. The opposite southwest side is entirely occupied by the districts of Tsurumi , Kōhoku , Tsuzuki and Aoba in the city of Yokohama. With the completion of
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2394-540: The northeastern part of the city, which are connected directly to the centers of Tokyo by new railway lines. On April 1, 1972, Kawasaki became a decree-designated city ( seirei shitei toshi ) with 5 districts. 1973 the population exceeded the million mark. In 1982 the new districts of Miyamae and Asao were created by splitting off from the districts of Takatsu and Tama. In the course of deindustrialization , industrial areas have recently been increasingly converted into residential areas (mostly Multi-family residential ), so that
2451-519: The number of cities countrywide had increased to 205. After WWII , their number almost doubled during the "great Shōwa mergers" of the 1950s and continued to grow so that it surpassed the number of towns in the early 21st century (see the List of mergers and dissolutions of municipalities in Japan ). As of October 1 2018, there are 792 cities of Japan. Bombing of Tokyo Second Sino-Japanese War The bombing of Tokyo ( 東京空襲 , Tōkyō kūshū )
2508-448: The other hand, the municipalities recently gained the city status purely as a result of increase of population without expansion of area are limited to those listed in List of former towns or villages gained city status alone in Japan . The Cabinet of Japan can designate cities of at least 200,000 inhabitants to have the status of core city , or designated city . These statuses expand the scope of administrative authority delegated from
2565-419: The past 70 years. Kawasaki is governed by Mayor Norihiko Fukuda, an independent elected on 27 October 2013. The city assembly has 63 elected members. Mayor Fukuda was re-elected to a second term in office on 22 October 2017 with support from LDP and Kōmeitō against former municipal MP Akiko Yoshizawa and JCP -supported former primary school teacher Hirokazu Ichiko. The 60-member city parliament of Kawasaki
2622-495: The prefectural government to the city government. Tokyo , Japan's capital, existed as a city until 1943, but is now legally classified as a special type of prefecture called a metropolis ( 都 , to ) . The 23 special wards of Tokyo , which constitute the core of the Tokyo metropolitan area, each have an administrative status analogous to that of cities. Tokyo also has several other incorporated cities, towns and villages within its jurisdiction. Cities were introduced under
2679-401: The task, 15.8 square miles (41 km ) of Tokyo were destroyed on a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned out areas. In his 1968 book, reprinted in 1990, historian Gabriel Kolko cited a figure of 125,000 deaths. Elise K. Tipton, professor of Japan studies, arrived at
2736-598: Was a series of air raids on Japan launched by the United States Army Air Forces during the Pacific Theatre of World War II in 1944–1945, prior to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The raids that were conducted by the U.S. military on the night of 9–10 March 1945, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse , are the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. 16 square miles (41 km ; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo
2793-560: Was against Kobe on 4 February 1945. Tokyo was hit by incendiaries on 25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s flew a high altitude raid during daylight hours and destroyed around 643 acres (260 ha) (2.6 km ) of the snow-covered city, using 453.7 tons of mostly incendiaries with some fragmentation bombs. After this raid, LeMay ordered the B-29 bombers to attack again but at a relatively low altitude of 5,000 to 9,000 ft (1,500 to 2,700 m) and at night, because Japan's anti-aircraft artillery defenses were weakest in this altitude range, and
2850-549: Was destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, by comparison, resulted in the immediate death of an estimated 70,000 to 150,000 people. The U.S. mounted the Doolittle Raid , a seaborne, small-scale air raid on Tokyo in April 1942. Strategic bombing and urban area bombing began in 1944 after the long-range B-29 Superfortress bomber entered service, first deployed from China and thereafter
2907-468: Was dismissed at the first judgement in December 2009, and their appeal was rejected. The plaintiffs then appealed to the Supreme Court , which rejected their case in May 2013. In 2013, during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe 's second term, Abe's cabinet stated that the raids were "incompatible with humanitarianism , which is one of the foundations of international law", but also noted that it
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#17327983908922964-469: Was established on the Tōkaidō Main Line which was Japan's first railway line. In 1889, the city (machi) Kawasaki in the district (gun) Tachibana was created according to the Japanese municipal system introduced the year before. In 1912 the border between Kanagawa and Tokyo prefectures was established as the Tama River . On July 1, 1924, the independent city (shi-) of Kawasaki with 48,394 inhabitants
3021-455: Was formed through a merger with the city of Daishi (formerly Daishigawara) and the village of Miyuki. People from the Korean peninsula were made to work in the industrial sector in the city, working on railways construction, or rebuilding roads damaged by U.S. bombings towards the end of WWII. People from Okinawa were also coming to the city, and in 1924, the oldest Okinawans Association in Japan
3078-488: Was founded in Kawasaki. As part of World War II , the city was bombed three times by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) between April 1945 and July 1945. The most serious attack was an area bombing with Napalm bombs on April 15, 1945. The attacks destroyed around 35% of the urban area and claimed 1,520 dead and 8,759 injured. The attacks burned down 9.3 km of the city (see Bombing of Tokyo ). Kawasaki became
3135-462: Was not officially recognized until 1623 as the last of the 53 Tōkaidō stations. The Bakufu let the bridges over the Tama collapse and there were ferry connections to nearby Edo in several places in today's Kawasaki, which laid the foundation for the development of the city. The rapid urbanization of the area, which continues to this day, began in the Meiji and Taishō eras. In 1872, Kawasaki Station
3192-502: Was re-elected in the unified elections in April 2023. The LDP won 17 seats and is the largest party in the assembly. Kawasaki was in June 2008 the second Japanese "government-designated city" (seirei shitei toshi) after Hiroshima , which allowed foreigners to participate in municipal referendums. In the 105-member prefectural parliament of Kanagawa, the seven districts of Kawasaki serve as constituencies, electing 18 deputies in total. For
3249-415: Was slight until firebombing destroyed much of the light industry that was used as an integral source for small machine parts. Firebombing also killed or made homeless many workers. According to the victorious US report, over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half. The destruction and damage were especially severe in
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