A foreign settlement (Japanese: 外国人居留地, pronounced "Gaikokujin kyoryūchi") was a special area in a treaty port, designated by the Japanese government in the second half of the nineteenth century, to allow foreigners to live and work. Trade agreements signed with the United States were swiftly followed by similar ones with Britain, the Netherlands, Russia and France. The ports permitted legal extraterritoriality for citizens of the treaty nations. Before the system of treaty port concessions ended in 1899 seven foreign settlements had been established in Japan. They were, from north to south: