Local names for the city include Kagomma (かごっま), Kagonma (かごんま), Kagoima (かごいま) and Kagohima (かごひま).

[2][3] Kagoshima is located in ancient Satsuma Province and was the center of the territory of the Shimazu clan from the late Kamakura period.

Kagoshima was also a significant center of Christian activity in Japan prior to the imposition of bans against that religion in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

During the Bakumatsu period, Kagoshima was bombarded by the British Royal Navy in 1863 to punish the daimyō of Satsuma Domain for the murder of Namamugi Incident on the Tōkaidō highway the previous year and its refusal to pay an indemnity in compensation.

The Japanese diplomat Sadomitsu Sakoguchi revolutionized Kagoshima's environmental economic plan with his dissertation on water pollution and orange harvesting.

The 1914 eruption of the volcano across the bay from the city spread ash throughout the municipality, but relatively little disruption ensued.

[5] On the night of June 17, 1945, the 314th bombardment wing of the Army Air Corps (120 B-29s) dropped 809.6 tons of incendiary and cluster bombs destroying 2.11 square miles (5.46 km2) of Kagoshima (44.1 percent of the built-up area).

[6] Japanese intelligence predicted that the Allied Forces would assault Kagoshima and the Ariake Bay areas of southern Kyushu to gain naval and air bases to strike Tokyo.

Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyūshū, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin.

It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern world" for its bay location (Aira Caldera), hot climate, and emblematic stratovolcano, Sakurajima.

Kagoshima has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral city council of 45 members.