It is among many other things home to the Yokohama city hall and the Kanagawa prefectural government building.

In the first post-reform election of 1996, the 1st district was mainly contested by Liberal Democrat Jun Matsumoto (Asō faction), a former member of the city council and newcomer in national politics, Democrat Ken'ichirō Satō (formerly LDP, Fukuda faction, then New Party Sakigake member in the 1990s), an incumbent for the pre-reform 4th district, and newcomer Masahiko Okabe for the New Frontier Party.

Matsumoto narrowly won, but Satō kept a seat via the newly introduced proportional representation.

In 2000, Satō beat Matsumoto who then also failed to win a proportional seat but retook the 1st district in the 2003 and 2005 general elections.

Satō retired from politics in 2007, but in the national landslide Democratic victory of 2009, first time candidate Mieko Nakabayashi won the 1st district against Matsumoto.