Chiba (千葉市 Chiba-shi) is a city in Japan, the capital of Chiba Prefecture. Located about 40 km east of central Tokyo on Tokyo Bay. Since 1992, it has the status of a city, determined by government decree.

Name
The name of the city in Japanese is written in two Chinese characters. The first (Chinese 千) means “thousand”, the second whale. 葉 – “leaves”. The name is first mentioned as the name of one of the so-called “kuni-no-miyatsuko” (Japanese: 千葉国造, Chiba Kuni no Miyatsuko, Chiba-kuni-no-miyatsuko) administration areas. The name was adopted by the local branch of the Taira clan, whose representatives moved to the territory of the modern city at the end of the Heian period. This branch of the Taira clan adopted this name and became known as the Chiba clan. The Chiba clan had considerable influence in what is now Chiba Prefecture until the beginning of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. The name “Chiba” was chosen for Chiba Prefecture when it was created in 1873, at the beginning of the Meiji era.

In Literature
In literature, Chiba, as a city of the future, is found in the famous cyberpunk novel Neuromancer by William Gibson, and the light novel Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru takes place in it. Wataru Watari.