Tenjinbashisuji Shopping Street

Tenjinbashisuji starts at Tenjinbashi bridge and runs north as far as Tenjinbashisuji 7-chome, about 2.6 km in all. It is said to be the longest shopping street in Japan, and walking it takes about 40 minutes. Welcome dolls are set above the entrance, and once inside the arcade some 800 shops follow one after another: old-style eating houses, prepared food shops, a blade shop run by generations of swordsmiths, a tea shop founded in the first year of Meiji, tofu, croquettes, ceramics, kimono. It began in the Edo period as the town in front of the gate of Osaka Tenmangu in 2-chome, which enshrines Sugawara no Michizane, the god of learning, and from the Meiji period it grew into a shopping street of the kind seen today. The Osaka Museum of Housing and Living in 6-chome recreates the town as it was from the Edo period through the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras. At the Tenjin Matsuri on 24 and 25 July each year, local mikoshi are carried through the street, and stalls and sideshows fill it with life.

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