Current Time in Yokkaichi, Japan

Yokkaichi lies on the western shore of Ise Bay in Mie Prefecture, on the main Japanese island of Honshu, roughly midway between Nagoya and the sacred shrines of Ise. Behind the city the Suzuka mountains rise sharply toward the border with Shiga, while in front stretches a working coastline of docks, refineries and reclaimed land. The climate is mild, with humid summers and winters that occasionally bring snow flurries down from the mountains.

Home to around three hundred thousand people, Yokkaichi is the largest city in Mie Prefecture and one of the most important industrial centres in central Japan. Its petrochemical complex, port and semiconductor plants make it a cornerstone of the regional economy, and its container terminals handle a large share of the trade of the Chubu region.

The name means market of the fourth day, recalling the periodic markets held here in medieval times. The town grew as the forty third post station on the Tokaido, the great highway between Edo and Kyoto, and travellers rested here before crossing the bay or continuing overland. The artist Hiroshige depicted it in his celebrated series of woodblock prints, showing a windswept traveller chasing his hat along the shore. Modern industry arrived after the Second World War, when a former naval fuel depot became the site of Japan's first large petrochemical complex.

That industry brought prosperity and also tragedy. In the 1960s severe air pollution caused widespread respiratory illness, remembered as Yokkaichi asthma and counted among the four great pollution diseases of postwar Japan. The lawsuits that followed helped establish environmental law in the country, and the city has since become a model of pollution control, sharing its expertise with developing nations. In an unexpected turn, the same industrial landscape has become an attraction in its own right, since boat and bus tours now take visitors to admire the illuminated refineries by night, a genre of sightseeing known as factory night views that began here and spread across Japan.

Yokkaichi is equally famous for Banko ware, a pottery tradition centred on the Tomida district. Its unglazed purple clay teapots, prized for the way they bring out the flavour of green tea, account for the great majority of such teapots made in Japan, and a museum and workshops allow visitors to see them being thrown and fired. The city also hosts a lively autumn festival with enormous mechanical puppets and paraded floats, some of them centuries old.

Nearby attractions include the hot springs of Yunoyama at the foot of Mount Gozaisho, reached by ropeway, and the motor racing circuit at Suzuka just to the south. Local specialities include tonteki, a thick garlic seasoned pork steak that has become a signature dish.

Fast trains and two railway companies connect the city to Nagoya in around half an hour, and a charming narrow gauge line survives on the outskirts. Yokkaichi University and technical colleges serve local students.

Yokkaichi is notable as an industrial city that confronted its past and turned it into a source of both learning and unusual beauty.