Fukuoka

Hakata Bay put this city at the front of Japan's dealings with the Asian mainland. A gold seal found on Shikanoshima, given by a Han emperor to a local ruler in the first century, is the earliest hard evidence of contact, and from the seventh century the government ran its diplomacy and coastal defence from Dazaifu, inland. Envoys to Tang China sailed from here, monks returned through the port with new schools of Buddhism, and Chinese merchants settled in Hakata, which grew into the country's busiest foreign trading town.

In 1274 and again in 1281 Mongol and Korean fleets landed on the bay. The defenders built a stone wall several kilometres long along the shore after the first attack, and sections of it survive; storms wrecked the second fleet, and the episode entered Japanese memory as the kamikaze, the divine wind. War between rival lords burned the town repeatedly until Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered it rebuilt in 1587 on a grid that still underlies the old quarter.

In 1601 Kuroda Nagamasa, newly granted the domain, built a castle across the Naka River and named the samurai town around it Fukuoka, after his family's earlier home. Merchants' Hakata and samurai Fukuoka remained two towns until they merged in 1889, when the new city took the castle side's name and the station kept the port's. Industry and coal from the surrounding fields drove growth; American firebombing on 19 June 1945 destroyed about a fifth of the built-up area. Post-war Fukuoka rebuilt as a service and government hub for Kyushu, gained the Shinkansen in 1975, held an exposition on reclaimed land at Momochi in 1989, and has since become one of the few large Japanese cities whose population is still rising.

Fukuoka's culture is festival culture. Hakata Gion Yamakasa, run from Kushida Shrine every July, divides the old town into districts that build and race one-tonne floats through the streets before dawn; it is inscribed by UNESCO as part of Japan's float festivals, and membership of a district team is a lifelong tie. Hakata Dontaku over the May holidays fills the avenues with amateur troupes clapping wooden rice spatulas, and the autumn Hojoya at Hakozaki Shrine lines its approach with stalls.

The city is proud of being a place where things arrived first. Zen practice, tea seeds, udon and the making of buckwheat noodles are all traditionally said to have entered Japan through Hakata's temples, and Shofuku-ji, founded in 1195, is described as the country's earliest Zen temple. Crafts carry the old town's name: Hakata-ori, a crisp silk weave used for obi sashes, and Hakata dolls, unglazed painted clay figures.

Sport and music are followed keenly. The SoftBank Hawks fill the dome at Momochi, the November grand sumo tournament is one of six in the year, and the city has produced a long line of pop and rock acts, enough to give it a reputation as a talent pipeline for Tokyo. People here are considered open and direct by Japanese standards, and the shared counters of the yatai are usually offered as proof. The Korean peninsula is closer than Tokyo, and Chinese and Korean residents, students and visitors are part of everyday city life.

About 1.6 million people live in the city and roughly 2.5 million in the wider urban area, making it the largest in Kyushu and one of the few Japanese cities still growing. It is also notably young: universities and colleges draw students from across the island, and start-up schemes and lower rents have pulled workers from Tokyo. Most people live in flats in the southern and eastern wards and commute by subway or bus into Tenjin and Hakata.

The economy is built on services rather than factories — retail, offices, logistics through the port and airport, tourism and a growing technology sector, with heavy industry concentrated in Kitakyushu to the north-east. Cruise ships and ferries bring visitors from South Korea and China, and the city has positioned itself as Japan's gateway to the region.

Daily rhythm is office hours followed by an unusually long evening: Tenjin's shops stay busy until night, izakaya fill from six, and the yatai open as the streets empty of commuters. The redevelopment of Tenjin, where a relaxed height limit tied to the nearby airport has allowed a wave of rebuilding, is the city's visible current issue, along with the strain that heavy summer rain places on rivers and hillsides.

Fukuoka treats eating as its main civic pleasure. Hakata ramen is the starting point: very thin, firm wheat noodles in tonkotsu, a pork-bone broth boiled until it turns opaque, topped with sliced pork, pickled ginger and sesame. Customers state how firm they want the noodles and order kaedama, a second helping of noodles dropped into the remaining soup. The Nagahama style, associated with the old fish market, uses even thinner noodles.

Winter belongs to hot pots. Motsunabe combines beef offal, cabbage and garlic chives in a soy or miso broth, with noodles cooked in what is left; mizutaki simmers chicken on the bone into a cloudy stock eaten with ponzu. Goma saba, raw mackerel dressed in sesame and soy, appears on most izakaya menus because the fish is landed nearby. Mentaiko, pollock roe cured with chilli, was developed here after the war from a Korean preparation and is eaten with rice, in pasta and inside rice balls.

The yatai are the city's signature, wooden carts, more numerous here than in any other Japanese city, that set up on pavements in Nakasu, Tenjin and Nagahama each evening and serve ramen, grilled skewers, tempura and beer to a few customers at a time. Markets and sweet shops fill out the picture: the Yanagibashi lane of fish and pickle stalls, amaou strawberries from the prefecture in spring, and umegae mochi, a grilled rice cake filled with sweet bean paste, sold along the approach to Dazaifu.