City Museum Kobe was opened in 1982. This is one of the many museums in Japan that exist with the support of the municipality. It is located in a building built in neoclassical architecture in 1935. The Museum building resembles a Greek temple with Doric columns on the front. The Museum has functioned as a branch of the Bank of Tokyo. The building was damaged during the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995, however, a year after the restoration, the Museum resumed its work. It is noteworthy that the Museum's collection, including stored there national treasures, was not injured.

The Museum's collection combined collections of two museums – the Museum of archeology and art, municipal Museum of nanban art of the sixteenth century (or "southern barbarians", as it was called in Japan all foreigners, at the beginning of the Portuguese, and then other Europeans who settled in the South of the country).

The collection includes 39 thousand items, including archaeological finds, works of art, old maps and historical documents and artifacts related to the history of the city of Kobe. The city's history is represented here, from the earliest times to the earthquake of 1995 and the subsequent restoration of the city. In a separate exhibition features objects found in the Kitano district-those on those lands that once belonged to the foreign concessions.

Since Kobe since ancient times is a port of international importance, it was decided to designate the concept of the city Museum as the interaction of Eastern and Western cultures. The Museum presents the history of cultural exchange of Japan with the countries of East Asia – Korea, China, and culture of Japan during the Edo period, when direct communication with other countries was virtually non-existent and the Meiji period, when European culture has had perhaps the most tangible impact on the lives of the Japanese.