Kyushu & Okinawa

Kyushu was Japan's front door to the Asian mainland. Wet-rice farming spread from the continent through its north, and the Yayoi-period moated settlement of Yoshinogari in Saga is one of Japan's great archaeological sites. The court ran its diplomacy and defence from Dazaifu near Fukuoka, and Mongol fleets attacked Hakata Bay in 1274 and 1281 before storms wrecked them.

Europeans arrived here first. Portuguese traders brought firearms to Tanegashima in 1543, Francis Xavier landed at Kagoshima in 1549, and Nagasaki became a Portuguese port with many Christian converts in the surrounding area. Christianity was banned and brutally suppressed, the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–38 was crushed, and for two centuries the Dutch post on Dejima in Nagasaki was Japan's only official window on Europe; hidden Christians kept their faith in secret on remote islands. Porcelain from Arita, started by Korean potters, was exported to Europe from the 17th century. The Shimazu lords of Satsuma, in Kagoshima, invaded the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1609, and in the 1860s Satsuma led the overthrow of the shogunate; Saigo Takamori's Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 was the last samurai revolt.

The Ryukyu Kingdom, based at Shuri, traded widely across East Asia until Japan annexed it as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. In 1945 the Battle of Okinawa killed a large share of the island's civilians, and Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb on 9 August. Okinawa stayed under US administration until 1972, and US bases there remain a political issue.

Kyushu people are known for warmth, directness and a love of shochu, and southern Kyushu's Kagoshima dialect is notoriously hard to follow. Festivals are energetic: Fukuoka's Hakata Gion Yamakasa in July ends with teams racing heavy floats through the streets, and Nagasaki's Kunchi in October mixes Chinese dragon dances and Dutch-inspired dances. Nagasaki's Chinese community also celebrates a lantern festival at Lunar New Year.

Religious history runs deep: Miyazaki's Takachiho is linked to the myths of the sun goddess, and the Hidden Christian sites of Nagasaki and Amakusa are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Crafts include Arita and Imari porcelain in Saga, Satsuma ware in Kagoshima, and Kurume's indigo cotton.

Okinawa is distinct from the rest of Japan. The Ryukyuan languages are separate from Japanese, though now spoken mainly by the elderly; the three-stringed sanshin plays Okinawan folk music; eisa drum dances fill the streets at Obon; and karate developed here before spreading to the mainland. Shisa, lion-dog figures, guard rooftops and gates, and ancestor worship at family tombs remains central, with the Shimi festival each spring gathering relatives at the graves.

About 14 million people live in Kyushu and Okinawa. Fukuoka, with about 1.6 million, is one of Japan's fastest-growing cities and the region's hub, with Kitakyushu, Kumamoto, Kagoshima, Oita and Nagasaki the other large cities. Okinawa Prefecture has about 1.5 million people, with Naha, the capital, home to around 300,000.

Kitakyushu grew around the Yawata steelworks, opened in 1901, and Kyushu is now a centre of car and semiconductor manufacturing, including a large new chip plant in Kumamoto. Agriculture is important — Kagoshima is Japan's largest producer of beef and pork — and Nagasaki has shipyards and fisheries. Okinawa relies on tourism, public spending and the US military bases, and has lower incomes than the national average. The bases, Okinawa's wartime memory and the relocation of Futenma air station are long-running disputes.

Fukuoka is young, compact and relaxed, with evening yatai food stalls along the river in Nakasu. Rural Kyushu, like the rest of Japan, is ageing, while Okinawa has a higher birth rate than most prefectures and a famously unhurried pace of life.

Fukuoka is the home of tonkotsu ramen, thin noodles in a milky pork-bone broth, as well as mentaiko, spicy cod roe, and motsunabe, a hot pot of beef offal and cabbage. Nagasaki's champon is a noodle soup of pork, seafood and vegetables created by a Chinese restaurant, and its castella is a sponge cake introduced by the Portuguese.

Kumamoto eats basashi, raw horse meat, and karashi renkon, lotus root stuffed with mustard and fried. Kagoshima has kurobuta black pork, satsuma-age fried fish cakes and shirokuma, shaved ice with condensed milk and fruit. Miyazaki gave Japan chicken nanban, fried chicken with vinegar and tartar sauce, and Oita has toriten, chicken tempura, and kabosu citrus. In Beppu, food is steamed over hot-spring vents. Shochu, distilled from sweet potato, barley or rice, is the drink of southern Kyushu.

Okinawan cooking is its own tradition, with pork at the centre: rafute is braised pork belly, and Okinawa soba is thick wheat noodles in pork broth. Goya champuru is a stir-fry of bitter melon, tofu and egg, umibudo are seaweed "sea grapes", and purple beni-imo sweet potato flavours tarts and ice cream. Awamori, a rice spirit, and Orion beer are the local drinks.

In the north, Fukuoka has its castle ruins, Ohori Park and the shrine of Dazaifu Tenmangu nearby. Nagasaki offers the Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Museum, the reconstructed Dejima, the Oura Church and Glover Garden, and boat trips to the abandoned mining island of Hashima; Saga has Yoshinogari and the porcelain town of Arita.

In central Kyushu, Kumamoto Castle is being restored after the 2016 earthquakes, and Mount Aso's caldera holds grasslands, villages and the steaming Nakadake crater. On the east coast, Beppu's hot springs include the "hells" and sand baths, with the quieter spa town of Yufuin nearby. Miyazaki's Takachiho Gorge has basalt cliffs and a waterfall, and its coast has the shrines of Aoshima and Udo.

Kagoshima faces Sakurajima, which puffs ash over the bay, and has the Sengan-en garden; Ibusuki is known for sand baths and Chiran for samurai houses and a museum to wartime pilots. Offshore, Yakushima has the ancient Jomon Sugi cedar and the moss forests of Shiratani Unsuikyo.

Okinawa Island has Shuri Castle, being rebuilt after a 2019 fire, the Peace Memorial Park in the south and the Churaumi Aquarium in the north. The coral islands beyond — the Kerama Islands, Miyako and the Yaeyama group of Ishigaki, Iriomote and Taketomi — offer diving, beaches and mangrove jungle.