Niigata City is the capital of Niigata Prefecture. It is the largest Japanese city along the coast of the Sea of Japan. Niigata lies on almost the same latitudinal coordinates as San Francisco, Tiensin and Lisbon, and is located approximately 300km northwest of Tokyo, which can be reached in 1 hour and 40 minutes by the Joetsu Shinkansen bullet train or in about 3 hours and 30 minutes by car on the Kan-etsu Expressway. Niigata was a prosperous port city during the Edo period because of it lays on a key point along trade routes in the Sea of Japan. In 1858, when the Japan-U.S.A. Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed, Niigata was designated as one of five ports in Japan to conduct trade with the outside world. Niigata's economy is supported by a high proportion of tertiary industries (commerce and service) and a large petrochemical industry which utilizes Niigata's convenient port access. Agricultural production occurs mainly in the suburbs. Although rice is the major crop, watermelons, Japanese radishes, and flowers are also popular items of cultivation. Niigata has rich coastal fisheries and much effort is made to maximize the harvests of mackerel, horse mackerel, and sagittated calamary (squid). The Joetsu Shinkansen bullet train and the Kan-etsu, Hokuriku and Ban-etsu Expressways makes up a high-speed transportation system. In addition, there are regular international flights from Niigata to Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Irkustsk, Seoul, Shanghai, Xi'an, Harbin, Guam and Honolulu. The port of Niigata offers a regular container service to Nakhoda, and there are regular passenger services to such places as Busan, Dalien and Shanghai. International exchanges with neighboring countries such as Russia, South Korea and China are constantly expanding. Niigata is a city committed to continue developing still more.