Osaka

Osaka is a port city in the Kansai region of Japan, on Osaka Bay at the mouth of the Yodo River. As Naniwa it held the imperial court for short spells in the 7th and 8th centuries, and its rice trade later earned it the name kitchen of the nation.

Shitennō-ji, begun by Prince Shōtoku in the late 6th century, is counted among the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan. Toyotomi Hideyoshi started Osaka Castle in 1583 on the ground of a fortified temple of the Jōdo Shinshū sect, and the main tower that rises from its stone walls was rebuilt in concrete in the 1930s. Under the Tokugawa shoguns rice from across the country was sold here, and the Dōjima Rice Exchange, opened in the 18th century, is recognized as the first organized futures market. Osaka hosted the World Expo in 2025 on an artificial island in its bay.

Panasonic began in Osaka, where Kōnosuke Matsushita first made electric plug sockets and then bicycle lamps. Suntory keeps its head office in the city and blends Yamazaki and Hibiki whiskies, while Takeda Pharmaceutical grew from a medicine shop in the old drug merchants' quarter. Nissin Foods, also based in Osaka, sells Cup Noodles, a later product of its founder Momofuku Ando, who invented instant ramen.

A word of its own, kuidaore, to eat oneself into ruin, describes the local love of food, and takoyaki, batter balls with pieces of octopus inside, were first sold from an Osaka stall in the 1930s. Bunraku puppet theater took its classic form in the city in the late 17th century, when Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote plays for the chanter Takemoto Gidayū, and UNESCO lists it as intangible heritage of humanity. Dōtonbori is named after Yasui Dōton, the merchant who began digging its canal in the early 17th century, and its banks held kabuki and bunraku theaters through the Edo period.