However, until the end of the Heian period, the area was sparsely settled, and the site of Yokkaichi was only a small port village.

After the Honnō-ji Incident during which warlord Oda Nobunaga was assassinated, Tokugawa Ieyasu fled from Yokkaichi port by sea to his castle at Edo.

Following the Meiji Restoration, Yokkaichi Town was established with the creation of the modern municipalities system on April 1, 1889, and was designated the capital of Mie Prefecture.

From 1939, Yokkaichi became a center for the chemical industry, with the Imperial Japanese Navy constructing a large refinery near the port area.

During the final stages of World War II, on June 18, 1945, 89 B-29 Superfortress bombers dropped 11,000 incendiary bombs destroying 35% of the urban area and killing 736 people.

From 1960 to 1972, the city residents suffered health problems caused by the emission of SOx into the atmosphere from local petrochemical and chemical plants.

Yokkaichi has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral city council of 34 members.

Yokkaichi is a manufacturing center that produces Banko ware (a kind of earthenware and stoneware),[6] automobiles, cotton textiles, chemicals, tea, cement, and computer parts such as flash memory by Kioxia and Western Digital.