is one of nine wards of Kobe, Japan. It has an area of 14.56 km2 and a population of 106,322 (as of January 1, 2015).
The area's location with a natural harbour near the Akashi Strait which links Osaka Bay and the Seto inland sea has been an important location throughout the history of Japan. The capital of Japan was located in the area for a short period in the 12th century. Today the area is an important manufacturing zone.
The modern ward of Hyogo was formed as Sōsai-ku () when Kobe adopted the system of wards in 1931. Its name was changed to Hyogo in 1933 and its current boundaries were settled in 1971. The floral emblem of the ward is the pansy.
Etymology
The literal meaning of the two kanji that make up the name Hyogo is "weapons warehouse". From the Heian period, the area was also known as .
History
Pre Edo period
The features of the natural harbour around Wadamisaki Peninsula has meant the port in Hyogo has been an important gateway to the Seto inland sea since the 8th-century Nara period. In the 12th century, in the latter part of the Heian period, Taira no Kiyomori recognized the strategic benefit of the location and developed the harbor, including the building of , a man-made island completed in 1173 and described as 37 hectares in size in The Tale of the Heike. Kiyomori, the de facto ruler of Japan between 1160 and 1180, moved his official residence to Fukuhara, in what is modern-day Hyogo. Fukuhara became the capital of Japan for a brief period near the end of Kiyomori's rule. A monument erected shortly after his death, the Kiyomori-zuka, stands in the gardens of a shrine opposite Kiyomori Bridge, also named in his honour.
Edo-Meiji periods
During the Edo period Hyogo was within the Yatabe District of Settsu Province. Although Japan was placed under isolation by the ruling Tokugawa shogunate, Hyogo Port remained an important route for domestic trade. Given its importance, Hyogo Port was under the direct administration of the Shogunate via the Osaka machi-bugyō. In 1868, at the end of the Edo period, Hyogo port was one of the first to be opened to foreign vessels, ending Japan's 250-year long isolation.
As part of the Shogunate's efforts to protect Japan from Western colonial forces, the defence of Hyogo Port was upgraded with the construction of the Wadamisaki Battery, one of six land batteries built around Osaka Bay under the design of Count Katsu Kaishū. It was completed in 1864 after 18 months of construction at a cost of 25,000 ryō. The outer enceinte was built of granite from the Shiwaku Islands and the inner two-storey structure was made of keyaki (Japanese elm) wood harvested from the Nunobiki and Tekkai Mountains in Kobe. In 1921 the battery was the first place in Hyogo Prefecture to be designated as a historic site by the prefectural government.
Also, the Wadamisaki Lighthouse was completed in 1871 under the guidance of the "father of Japanese lighthouses", Englishman Richard Henry Brunton, who was brought to Japan by the Shogunate under an 1867 agreement with the United Kingdom to build five western-style lighthouses around Osaka Bay. The original lighthouse, which was first illuminated in 1872, was a wooden octagonal structure. This was replaced with a 17m tall, three-story, steel hexagonal structure in 1884. The steel lighthouse was moved to the Suma Kaihin (Seaside) Park in Suma-ku in 1967 and in September 1998 it was registered as a national tangible cultural asset under the name .
Modern period
On 1 September 1931 the city of Kobe was the 6th city in Japan to adopt the system of dividing the city into wards. The area of the previous Hyogo town which lay west of the Minato River became Sōsai-ku (). The area of Hyogo town which lay east of the Minato River became part of Sōtō-ku (). On 1 January 1933 Sōsai's name was changed to Hyogo in recognition of the area's historic name.
Bombing during World War II
The concentration of military and industrial manufacturing facilities including Kobe Steel, Kawanishi Aircraft Company Kawasaki Aircraft Industries and the Kawasaki and Mitsubishi Shipyards made the city of Kobe a primary target of bombing by the United States during World War II. It suffered the highest fatality rate of the five major Japanese cities (the others being Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka).