Map - Chiba-shi

Chiba (千葉市) is the capital city of Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It sits about 40 km east of the centre of Tokyo on Tokyo Bay. The city became a government-designated city in 1992. In June 2019, its population was 979,768, with a population density of 3,605 people per km2. The city has an area of 271.77 sqkm.

Chiba City is one of the Kantō region's primary seaports, and is home to Chiba Port, which handles one of the highest volumes of cargo in Japan. Much of the city is residential, although there are many factories and warehouses along the coast. There are several major urban centres in the city, including Makuhari, a prime waterfront business district in which Makuhari Messe is located, and Central Chiba, in which the prefectural government office and the city hall are located.

Chiba is famous for the Chiba Urban Monorail, the longest suspended monorail in the world. Some popular destinations in the city include: Kasori Shell Midden, the largest shellmound in the world at 134000 m2, Inage Beach, the first artificial beach in Japan which forms part of the longest artificial beach in Japan, and the Chiba City Zoological Park, popular on account of the standing red panda Futa.

The name of Chiba in the Japanese language is formed from two kanji characters. The first,, means "thousand" and the second, means "leaves". The name first appears as an ancient kuni no miyatsuko, or regional command office, as Chiha no Kuni no Miyatsuko (千葉国造). The name was adopted by a branch of the Taira clan, which moved to the area in present-day Chiba City in the late Heian period. The branch of the Taira adopted the name and became the Chiba clan, which held strong influence over the area of the prefecture until the Azuchi–Momoyama period. The name "Chiba" was chosen for Chiba Prefecture at the time its creation in 1873 by the Assembly of Prefectural Governors (地方官会議), an early Meiji-period body of prefectural governors that met to decide the structure of local and regional administration in Japan.