Population: 2.6M
Location: Kansai, Capital of the Osaka prefecture
The city is the second largest after Tokyo and the third most populated after Tokyo and Yokohama. Osaka is a port city but also was the merchant capital of Japan. Indeed, it was the economic powerhouse of Kansai for a long time. Before Tokyo and even Kyoto, the capital of Japan was Osaka, formerly known as Naniwa. It used to supply goods such as rice, sake, ceramics from Kyoto to Tokyo by sea. In the 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi chose Osaka as the location for his castle, and the city may have become Japan’s political capital if Tokugawa Ieyasu had not terminated the Toyotomi lineage after Hideyoshi’s death and moved his government to distant Tokyo. Osaka is famous in Japan for its food, warm people, its castle and its dialect. It is vibrant city.
Hiroshima Yamaguchi Fukuoka Nagasaki Kumamoto Kagoshima Miyazaki Beppu