Many port cities can be conceived as archetype places where the origins of modern health conditions and modern public health strategies can be analysed. It is not surprising therefore that considerable interdisciplinary researches, drawing explicitly on work in medical, global, demographic, economic, political, social and urban history has been undertaken in recent years. This small volume brings together a series of contributions covering the development of port cities in the late 19th and early 20th century – the period of “The Birth of The Modern World” (Christopher A. Bayly), and which were presented at the Sixth Conference for the Asian Society for the History of Medicine, 14-15 December 2012, Keio University, Hiyoshi Campus, Yokohama, Japan and on Public Health in European and Asian Port Cities at the Birth of the Modern world in the late 19th and early 20th century at the 12th International Conference on Urban History, Lisbon, Portugal, September 2014. It will analyse the selection and implementation of various public health strategies in different port cities in Europe and Asia, and examine the international relationship between overseas trade, urban development, and public health policy.