Located in the center of the Chinese Street of Yokohama, next to the Guandi Temple, Yokohama Overseas Chinese School comprises a kindergarten, a primary department, a junior department and a senior department. Taken into account the nursery school, it is taking care of children ranging from the newborn to the young of 18. There are 300 at the School. (at present of 30th, Nov., 2001)

In 1895, when the harbor of Yokohama came into use, quite a few schools were set up by Huaqiao, including Datong School, which opened in 1897 under the suggestion of Sun Wen. All these schools were destroyed in the Great Earthquake of Kantou in 1923 and they were reorganized and integrated into Cantonese Primary School in 1924, later called Chinese Public Primary School. The new school's building, however, was boomed in the Great Air Raid in 1945. It was reconstructed in 1946, called the Chinese Primary School of Yokohama. The next year, the school opened the Junior Education Department. In 1955, the Senior Education Department was founded. With progressive development, it came to be recognized as the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School in 1955, and the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School in 1958. From the time of Datong School, Yokohama Overseas Chinese School has the longest history among all the Chinese Schools ever built in Japan.

Focused on the moral and character training such as good manners, self-respect, honest and upright, they trained students to be international-broad minded and bearing Chinese culture spirit at the same time. Compared with general Japanese schools, it has two unique ways in teaching. The first is called "two-pillar education", with the emphasis on both the necessary prepare for qualifying test and the teaching of traditional Chinese culture. The second lies in their three-language teaching, which is the languages of Huaqiao and English. This practice begins when kids are still in kindergarten. Above all, Chinese is taught as mother language. Textbooks are the same as that used in Taiwan written in old Chinese characters using phonetic symbols. However, starting from last year, to adjust to the application of computer, phonetics alphabet and frequently used simplified Chinese characters have been taught intensively in the second semester of Grade Six and the first semester in junior education. Textbooks of Japanese, Social Science, Geography and History, are the same as that used in Japanese schools for the same grade. There are more than ten native Japanese teachers.

45% of the students come from Taiwan, 15% from the mainland of China and 15% are native Japanese students(including the Huaqiao who have acquired the Japan Nationality). Totally, students with Japanese nationality account for 40%. Many of the graduates pursue further study in Taiwan, Europe, America and mostly in Japan. Graduates from the Junior School can be found on the campus of the high school of Kanagawa Prefectural Senior High School of Foreign Studies,the high school of Toin Gakuen and graduates from the Senior School can been seen in Keio University,Waseda Univ., Chuo Unv.and private universities as Obirin national university as Chiba university, the medicine department.