The is a waterway connecting

Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, and spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. The Tokyo Bay region is both the most populous ...

to the Sagami Gulf. It is an important channel for ships headed from

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

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 ...

, and

Chiba Chiba may refer to: Places China * (), town in Jianli County, Jingzhou, Hubei Japan * Chiba (city), capital of Chiba Prefecture ** Chiba Station, a train station * Chiba Prefecture, a sub-national jurisdiction in the Greater Tokyo Area on ...

to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

and beyond.

Geography

The Uraga channel is at the southern end of Tokyo Bay (formerly known as Edo Bay, prior to 1868). Tokyo Bay is surrounded by the

Bōsō Peninsula The is a peninsula that encompasses the entirety of Chiba Prefecture on Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It is part of the Greater Tokyo Area. It forms the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay, separating it from the Pacific Ocean. The peninsula covers ...

(

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to the ...

) to the east and the

Miura Peninsula is a peninsula located in Kanagawa, Japan. It lies south of Yokohama and Tokyo and divides Tokyo Bay, to the east, from Sagami Bay, to the west. Cities and towns on the Miura Peninsula include Yokosuka, Miura, Hayama, Zushi, and Kamakur ...

(

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 ...

) to the west. In a narrow sense, Tokyo Bay is the area north of the straight line formed by the on the Miura Peninsula on one end and on the Boso Peninsula on the other end. This area covers about 922 km². Tokyo Bay, in a broader sense, would be understood to include the Uraga Channel as well (its southwestern demarcation being the straight line between the

Tsurugisaki Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on Cape Tsurugi on the southeastern extremity of the city of Miura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan on the southernmost and eastern tip of Miura Peninsula. (On the southernmost western tip of Miura Peninsula stands the Jōgashi ...

and Sunosaki Lighthouse); and the total area of the bay would then be 1320 km². The city of Uraga is located at the northern end of the channel on the Miura Peninsula. Due to its strategic location at the entrance of Edo Bay, Uraga has often been the first point of contact between visiting foreign ships and Japan. At its narrowest, between Cape Kannon and Futtsu Point, the channel is 6 km wide. During the late

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, it was defended against foreign ships by twelve artillery batteries on both the

and

History

In 1846, Captain

James Biddle James Biddle (February 18, 1783 – October 1, 1848), of the Biddle family, brother of financier Nicholas Biddle and nephew of Capt. Nicholas Biddle, was an American commodore. His flagship was . Education and early career Biddle was born in Ph ...

of the U.S. Navy anchored two warships, the U.S.S. ''Columbus'' and the U.S.S. ''Vincennes'' in Uraga Channel at the mouth to Tokyo Bay. This was a step in what turned out to be an unsuccessful effort to open Japan to trade with the United States. On July 14, 1853, Commodore Perry lowered the anchor of the squadron the Japanese called the '' Black ships'' near Uraga at Kurihama (in present-day

Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...

) at the mouth of the channel. On the return of the Commodore's squadron in 1854, the ships by-passed Uraga to anchor closer to Edo at Kanagawa, which is where the city of Yokohama now stands.Sewall, p. 243-264.

Notes

References

* Cullen, L.M. (2003). ''A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds.'' Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. (cloth). (paper) * Sewall, John S. (1905). ''The Logbook of the Captain's Clerk: Adventures in the China Seas,'' Bangor, Maine: Chas H. Glass & Co. eprint by Chicago: R.R. Donnelly & Sons, 1995

External links

* Maritime Traffic, 3rd Regional Coast Guard Headquarters
Uraga Suido Traffic Route
*

National Archives of Japan The preserve Japanese government documents and historical records and make them available to the public. Although Japan's reverence for its unique history and art is well documented and illustrated by collections of art and documents, there is a ...

, Digital Gallery: Marine survey chart
Tokyo bay, Kuwanonsaki to Koshiba
published 1876 {{coord, 35.20187, N, 139.79279, E, source:placeopedia, display=title Bodies of water of Japan Channels