Kitashinchi

Kitashinchi is the high-end nightlife quarter of Kita, where bars, clubs, snack bars, small Japanese restaurants and Japanese and Western kappo restaurants gather. It is a rectangle about 500 m east to west and 250 m north to south, bounded by National Route 2 to the north, the Dojima River to the south, Midosuji to the east and Yotsubashi to the west. Its beginnings go back to Genroku 1 (1688) and the creation of Dojima Shinchi during repair works on the main and branch channels of the Yodo River. The Dojima rice market opened from Genroku 10, and around the new land daimyo residences, teahouses, bathhouses and playhouses were licensed, and the area prospered. As the rice market grew and Dojima became a merchants' quarter, the pleasure quarter moved across the Sonezaki River to Sonezaki Shinchi. Sonezaki Shinchi gathered teahouses with courtesans at its centre, along with cookshops, bathhouses, steam baths, playhouses, shooting galleries and inns, and by Tenpo 13 (1842) it flourished as the first officially licensed pleasure quarter in Japan. In Meiji 45 (1912) the Sonezaki River was filled in, and Dojima Shinchi and Sonezaki Shinchi became today's Kitashinchi. After the war it thrived as a place where business leaders exchanged information, and was called the chamber of commerce of the night. Anyone who went out in Kitashinchi, it is said, was taken to have money to spare, and was trusted by the banks as well.

Translated and shortened from the Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City tourist listings (観光施設一覧, CC BY 4.0).