History

Tsukuba Science City represents one of the world's largest coordinated attempts to accelerate the rate of and improve the quality of scientific discovery. The city was closely modeled on other planned cities and science developments, including Brasilia, Novosibirsk's Akademgorodok, Bethesda, and Palo Alto. The city was founded by the merger of Ōho, Sakura, Toyosato, and Yatabe.

Beginning in the 1960s, the area was designated for development. Construction of the city centre, the University of Tsukuba and 46 public basic scientific research laboratories began in the 1970s. The city became operational in the 1980s to stimulate scientific discovery. Its constituent municipalities were administratively united in 1987. By the year 2000, the city's 60 national research institutes and two universities had been grouped into five zones: higher education and training, construction research, physical science and engineering research, biological and agricultural research, and common (public) facilities. These zones were surrounded by more than 240 private research facilities. Among the most prominent institutions are the University of Tsukuba (1973; formerly Tokyo University of Education); the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK); the Electrotechnical Laboratory; the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory; and the National Institute of Materials and Chemical Research. The city has an international flair, with about 3,000 foreign students and researchers from as many as 90 countries living in Tsukuba at any one time.

Over the past several decades, nearly half of Japan's public research and development budget has been spent in Tsukuba. Important scientific breakthroughs by its researchers include the identification and specification of the molecular structure of superconducting materials, the development of organic optical films that alter their electrical conductivity in response to changing light, and the creation of extreme high-pressure vacuum chambers. Tsukuba has become one of the world's key sites for government-industry collaborations in basic research. Earthquake safety, environmental degradation, studies of roadways, fermentation science, microbiology, and plant genetics are some of the broad research topics having close public-private partnerships.

Tsukuba hosted the Expo '85 world's fair in 1985, which is commemorated by a full-scale, working rocket in the city park. Attractions at the event included the 85-metre (279 ft) Technocosmos, which at that time was the world's tallest Ferris wheel.

During the Fukushima I nuclear accidents in 2011, evacuees from the accident zone reported that municipal officials in Tsukuba refused to allow them access to shelters in the city unless they presented certificates from the Fukushima government declaring that the evacuees were "radiation free".

On May 6, 2012, Tsukuba was struck by a tornado which caused heavy damage to numerous structures and approximately twenty thousand residents were left without electricity. The storm injured forty-five people and a fourteen year-old boy was killed. The tornado was rated an F-3 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, making it the most powerful tornado to ever hit Japan. Some spots had F-4 damage.