is a Japanese politician and current mayor of

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

, the capital of

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...

. He defeated incumbent mayor Fumiko Hayashi in the 2021 Yokohama mayoral election. His independent campaign was supported by the

Constitutional Democratic Party ) , newspaper = ''Rech'' , ideology = ConstitutionalismConstitutional monarchismLiberal democracyParliamentarism Political pluralismSocial liberalism , position = Centre to centre-left , international = , colours ...

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

, and the

Communist Party of Japan The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party advocates the establishment of a democr ...

. Yamanaka's campaign focused on the opposition for a planned

integrated resort An integrated resort (IR) is a major resort property that includes a hotel with a casino, together with convention facilities, entertainment shows, theme parks, luxury retail and fine dining. The term is largely Singaporean. Earlier IR lic ...

development and casino for the city which was to be built on Yamashita Pier, criticism against the government's response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, and additional sister city relationship with

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Yamanaka formerly worked as a professor at Yokohama City University and as a data scientist.

References

Living people 1972 births 21st-century Japanese politicians Mayors of Yokohama Waseda University alumni Yokohama City University faculty Data scientists Politicians from Saitama Prefecture {{Japan-politician-1970s-stub