Osaka

Osaka's site at the mouth of the Yodo River made it the country's gateway long before it had a name of its own. In the 7th century the court built the Naniwa palace here, briefly making it the capital, and Shitenno-ji, founded in 593, is one of the oldest temples in Japan. A temple town grew around the fortified Ishiyama Hongan-ji, which held out against Oda Nobunaga for a decade before falling in 1580.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi then built Osaka Castle on the site and drew merchants to the city beneath it. Although his heirs were destroyed there by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1615, the commercial city survived and prospered: canals were cut through the delta, rice from all over the country was traded in the warehouses of Nakanoshima, and by the 18th century Osaka was the nation's kitchen, with a merchant class that founded its own academies, its puppet theatre and a futures market in rice. Its citizens paid for their own bridges, a habit the city still remembers.

Industry followed the opening of the country: spinning mills gave it the name Manchester and Melbourne of the Orient, and by 1930 it had briefly overtaken Tokyo as the country's largest city. Air raids in 1945 destroyed much of the centre and killed many thousands. Rebuilding was rapid, the 1970 World Expo at Suita announced Japan's postwar arrival, and the city spread onto reclaimed land in the bay. A second World Expo was held in 2025 on the island of Yumeshima.

Osaka's self-image is merchant rather than courtly, and the greeting mokarimakka, which asks whether business is going well, is quoted as proof. Kansai-ben is spoken more broadly here than anywhere, and the city is the centre of Japanese comedy: manzai double acts developed in its theatres, the Yoshimoto company has trained performers here for over a century, and a quick, teasing exchange with a shop or stall holder is normal.

Its older stage traditions are just as strong. Bunraku puppet theatre was formed in Osaka, where the playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote for it in the early 18th century, and kabuki grew in the theatres of Dotonbori. Sumo holds a spring tournament in the city, and the Hanshin Tigers, based at Koshien in neighbouring Nishinomiya, command a following whose celebrations in the streets around Dotonbori are famous in themselves.

The city is more mixed than most in Japan. The Korean community around Tsuruhashi dates back a century, there are Chinese, Vietnamese and Nepali populations, and the bay wards have long housed dock and factory workers. Festivals mark the year loudly — the boats and fireworks of the Tenjin Matsuri in July, the January crowds at Imamiya Ebisu — and hospitality tends to be informal: loud restaurants, shared plates and an expectation that visitors will say what they think.

About 2.8 million people live in the city proper and around 19 million in the wider Keihanshin region, which makes it the second-largest metropolitan area in Japan. Osaka's daytime population swells well beyond its residents as commuters arrive from Hyogo, Nara, Shiga and Kyoto on some of the busiest railways in the world.

The economy is trade, services and manufacturing headquarters. Panasonic, Sharp, Daikin, Takeda and Nippon Life all grew here, the port handles containers for western Japan, and Dojima's old rice exchange has been succeeded by a large wholesale and retail sector. Tourism has grown sharply, bringing crowding to Minami and a rapid spread of hotels; the city government has also pursued a casino and conference resort on Yumeshima, the Expo island, which remains locally contentious.

People live in dense low-rise wards of small houses and flats behind main roads, and increasingly in tower blocks near the bay and along the Yodo. Daily life turns on the train timetable and on eating out: standing bars fill from early evening, arcade shopping streets serve as the local high street, and the older inner wards have an ageing population and rows of small family businesses. Flood defences along the rivers and earthquake preparation, sharpened by the 1995 Kobe earthquake and the 2018 typhoon that closed the airport, are constant civic concerns.

Osaka's reputation rests on cheap, direct, sauce-heavy cooking. Takoyaki — batter balls with octopus, cooked on a dimpled plate and eaten from a paper tray with a pick — were invented here in the 1930s, and okonomiyaki, a cabbage pancake cooked on a griddle with pork or seafood, is the other everyday dish. Kushikatsu, breaded skewers fried to order, belongs to Shinsekai, where the shared sauce pot and its no-double-dipping rule are part of the ritual.

The city also eats more formally than its image suggests. Kansai dashi is lighter than Tokyo's, kitsune udon with sweet fried tofu was created in Osaka, and hakozushi, sushi pressed in a wooden box and cut into squares, predates the hand-formed Tokyo style. Battera, pressed mackerel sushi, is another local form. Fugu, the pufferfish prepared only by licensed cooks, is a winter speciality here, thinly sliced or in a hotpot.

Markets and districts matter more than individual restaurants. Kuromon Ichiba grills and slices its stock for passing eaters; Tsuruhashi is the place for Korean grilled beef and kimchi; the streets around Tenma are full of standing bars serving kushikatsu, oden and skewered chicken. Sweets and snacks lean towards the plain — 551 Horai's pork buns are a standard souvenir from the station — and the drinking culture runs to highballs, local beer and sake from the Nada breweries along the coast.