Kamakura

A city in Kanagawa Prefecture of about 172,929 people, packed into 39.67 square kilometres at 4,359 to the square kilometre. It was Japan’s de facto capital between 1185 and 1333 as the seat of the Kamakura shogunate, established by Minamoto no Yoritomo and the first military government in the country’s history. It declined when the shogunate fell, then found a second life as a destination for the townspeople of Edo. The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 cost it a great deal of its historical and cultural fabric, but Tsurugaoka Hachimangū and the Great Buddha of Kamakura still stand.