The City of Niigata has thrived as a port town since oldentimes.

　Japan was closed off to the world during the Edo Era for more than two hundred years, and when it was once again opened in 1858, Niigata Port, together with Hakodate, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki, was designated as one of the five ports that would be made accessible to the rest of the world. Ever since then, the City of Niigata, conveniently separated from the shores of other nations by a short stretch of the Sea of Japan, has developed as an international port town, and with the amalgamation of the city with other towns and villages, it became the first government designated city on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu on April 1, 2007, with a population of 810,000.

　Not only is the overland transportation infrastructure well developed, with the fastest Joetsu Shinkansen bullet train linking Niigata to Tokyo within one-hundred minutes and In expressway network connecting us to places throughout the entire country, Niigata port also boasts the largest volume of container transport on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu and we operate regular air and sea services to South Korea, China, Russia, Guam and other nations.

　In addition to being a major city in Japan, the City of Niigata also continues to develop as a gateway to the world, and we were even designated as the location to hold the G8 Labour and Employment Ministers Meeting
in May, 2008.

　The estuaries to the Shinano River, which is Japan's longest river and boasts the largest water volume capacity, and the Agano River, which is Japan's second largest river in terms of water capacity, are located in Niigata, and the immense Echigo Plains make the City of Niigata one of Japan's few agricultural cities, with its crops of rice, vegetables, fruit, flowers and other produce.

　In addition to this, the city is blessed with abundant nature, such as the marshlands of Sakata, which are registered under the Ramsar Convention, Fukushimagata, Toyanogata, and many other wetlands, as well as mountains.

　Within the city we make the best possible use of features that cannot be found in any other cities in Japan, while forging ahead to create an unprecedented city landscape blessed with both urban conveniences and the beauty of nature .

　This guidebook has been designed to introduce the necessary procedures, various liaison offices and general lifestyle of Japan to overseas visitors and residents in order to ensure that they can live carefree lives in the City of Niigata. It is my sincerest hope that everyone will put it to good use, and I wish you all fruitful and comfortable lives in Niigata.