Disambiguation
- Osaka Prefecture (大阪府, Ōsaka-fu), a prefecture in the Kansai region.
- The city of Osaka (大阪市, Ōsaka-shi), the capital of Osaka Prefecture.
- Nickname of Ayumu Kasuga, a character in the manga Azumanga Daioh.
Overview
Osaka (大阪, Ōsaka) is a city in Japan, located in the Kansai region. The city of Osaka is the second largest city in Japan, with a population of 2.75 million. Osaka constitutes the Keihanshin metropolitan area (京阪神大都市圏), which is the second largest metropolitan area after Tokyo, and together with Kobe and Kyoto, the entire metropolitan area has a population of 19 million. Osaka has long been one of the 'three capitals' (三都, 'Santo'), comprising Kyoto, Osaka and Edo. The city is also the commercial, trading, economic, transport and cultural center of western Japan.
It is one of the 20 designated cities in Japan.
As practically Japan's second-largest hub city, it is the de facto norm for culture, entertainment and dialects in western Japan. Before World War II, from the Taisho to the early Showa period, Osaka was industrialised and many heavy industry plants operated in the city, which was once known as the 'Manchester of Orient'.
While Osaka has a history of being a capital city in ancient times, with the Naniwa-no-Miya Palace (難波宮) being established there through the 7th century, it has never had a national capital since the modern era. Nevertheless, Osaka has a strong sense of rivalry with the center (Tokyo), as it is proud of the fact that it developed through private capital and the power of its citizens, rather than through national policy. It used to be ahead of Tokyo in terms of culture, and for a long time the standard Japanese culture was carried by the two cities of Kyoto and Osaka (上方文化, Kamigata Culture).
After World War II, however, the balance between East and West was upset by the overconcentration in Tokyo, and since then the relationship between Tokyo and Osaka has been shifting to a position of 'Osaka as second after Tokyo as the pre-eminent first'.
Even today, the city has a wide range of influences as the leader of the Kansai region and as the cultural center of western Japan.
In the field of fiction, Osaka and its surrounding suburbs have been the setting for innumerable works, and characters from Osaka exist to such an extent that it has become a standard fictional trope.
There are certain stereotypes of Osaka people as cheerful, talkative, fond of making people laugh, flamboyant and excel at money matters, but at the same time, some Osaka people are uncomfortable with such views as being prejudiced.
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