Osaka (大阪市 Ōsaka-shi)

Transportation

Kansai International Airport

Air

Osaka is served by two airports outside the city.
Kansai International Airport (IATA: KIX) handles all scheduled international passenger flights, some domestic flights, and most cargo flights. It is on an artificial island that sits off-shore in Osaka Bay and is administratively part of the nearby town of Tajiri. The airport is linked by a bus and train service into the center of the city and major suburbs.

Osaka International Airport (IATA:ITM), on the border of the cities of Itami and Toyonaka, houses most of the domestic services, some international cargo flights, and international VIP charters from and to the metropolitan region.

Sea

Date Sister Port
1967: San Francisco, United States
1974: Melbourne, Australia
1980: Le Havre, France
1981: Shanghai, China
1983: Valparaiso, Chile
1985: Busan, South Korea
1994: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
The port of Osaka serves as a shipping hub for the Kansai region along with the port of Kobe.

Ferry

Osaka's international ferry connections are far greater than Tokyo's, mostly due to geography. There are international ferries that leave Osaka for Shanghai, Korea, and until recently Taiwan. Osaka's domestic ferry services include regular service to ports such as Shimonoseki, Kagoshima, Miyazaki and Okinawa.

Shipping

Port of Osaka

Shipping plays the crucial role for the freight coming in and out of the area nationally and internationally, and Greater Osaka areas exports and imported raw materials span the globe, with no one port dominating. Though the port of Kobe was in the 1970s the busiest in the world by containers handled, it no longer ranks among the top twenty worldwide. Kansai area is home to 5 existing LNG terminals.
Port of Osaka
Port of Kobe
Port of Sakai-Senboku (In Osaka Prefecture)
Port of Himeji

Rail

Greater Osaka has a very extensive network of railway lines, comparable to that of Greater Tokyo. Main rail terminals in the city include, Umeda, Namba, Tennoji, Kyobashi, and Yodoyabashi.

JR Central and JR West operate high-speed trains on the Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen line. Shin-Osaka Station is the Shinkansen terminal in Osaka. This station is connected to Osaka Station at Umeda by the JR Kyoto Line and the subway Midosuji Line. All Shinkansen trains including Nozomi stop at Shin-Osaka Station and provide access to other major cities in Japan, such as Kyoto, Nagoya, Yokohama and Tokyo to the east, and Kobe, Okayama, Hiroshima, Kitakyushu and Fukuoka to the west. In spring 2011, JR West and JR Kyushu will introduce new Shinkansen services, Sakura, linking Osaka with Kumamoto, Kagoshima, and other cities in central and south Kyushu.

The Chuo Shinkansen using JR-Maglev system will be extended to Shin-Osaka so that passengers can transfer to the existing Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen line.

Commuter rail

JR Osaka Loop Line

Both JR West and private lines connect Osaka and its suburbs. The commuter rail network of JR West is called the Urban Network. Major stations on the JR Osaka Loop Line include Osaka (Umeda), Tennoji, Tsuruhashi, and Kyobashi. JR West competes with such private rail operators as Keihan Electric Railway, Hankyu Railway, Hanshin Railway, Kintetsu Corporation, and Nankai Electric Railway. The Keihan and Hankyu lines connect to Kyoto; the Hanshin and Hankyu lines connect to Kobe; the Kintetsu lines connect to Nara, Yoshino, Ise and Nagoya; and the Nankai lines connect to Osaka's southern suburbs and Kansai International Airport as well as Wakayama and Mt. Koya. Many lines in Greater Osaka accept either ICOCA or PiTaPa contactless smart cards for payment.

Municipal subway

The Osaka Municipal Subway system is a part of Osaka's extensive rapid transit system. The Metro system alone ranks 8th in the world by annual passenger ridership, serving over 912 million people annually (a quarter of Greater Osaka Rail System's 4 billion annual riders), despite being only 8 of more than 70 lines in the metro area.

Bus

Regular bus services are provided by Osaka Municipal Transportation Bureau (the City Bus), as well as by group companies of Hankyu, Hanshin and Kintetsu. The City runs a dense network covering much parts of the city. The fare for the regular buses is a flat rate of 200 Yen, or 100 Yen for the smaller Red Bus looplines operated within segmented areas of the city. The other bus companies provide their services in supplement to their railway networks.

Places of interest

Tourist attractions include:

Universal Studios Japan
Amusement parks
Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (海遊館) – an aquarium located in Osaka Bay, containing 35,000 aquatic animals in 14 tanks, the largest of which holds 5,400 tons of water and houses a variety of sea animals including whale sharks. This tank is the world's second-largest aquarium tank, behind the Georgia Aquarium, whose largest tank holds approximately 29,000 tons of water.
Tempozan Harbor Village Ferris wheel, located next to the aquarium
Tennōji Zoo
Universal Studios Japan
Umeda Joypolis Sega
Shin-Umeda city – an innovative structure that has the floating garden observatory 170 m from the ground, which offers a 360-degree panoramic view of Osaka, popular for photographs, a structure that also houses an underground mall with restaurants and is styled in the early Showa period in the 1920s.

Parks

Nakanoshima Park: About 10.6 ha. In the vicinity of the City Hall
Osaka Castle Park: About 106 ha. Includes Osaka-jō Hall, a Japanese apricot garden, and more
Sumiyoshi Park:
Tennōji Park: About 28 ha. Includes Tennōji Zoo; an art museum (established by contribution from Sumitomo family in 1936); and a Japanese garden, Keitaku-en (慶沢園). Keitaku-en was constructed in 1908 by Jihei Ogawa (小川治兵衛), an illustrious gardener in Japan. This was originally one of Sumitomo family's gardens until 1921.
Utsubo Park
Nagai Park The 2007 IAAF World Championships in Athletics were held at Nagai Stadium, located in this park.
Tsurumi-Ryokuchi Park with the Sakuya Konohana Kan was the site of the flower expo in 1990.

Temples, shrines, and other historical sites

Hideyoshi's Osaka Castle (大阪城), destroyed in 1868 and rebuilt in 1931.
Osaka Castle
Sanko Shrine
Shitennō-ji – The oldest buddhist temple in Japan, established in 593 AD by Prince Shōtoku
Sumiyoshi Taisha One of the oldest Shinto shrines, built in 211 AD.
Tamatsukuri Inari Shrine

Entertainment

Doyama-cho - a homosexual District
Shinsekai district and Tsutenkaku Tower
Tobita red-light district

Education

Public elementary and junior high schools in Osaka are operated by the city of Osaka. Its supervisory organization on educational matters is Osaka City Board of Education. Likewise, public high schools are operated by Osaka Prefectural Board of Education. Osaka city once had a large number of universities high schools, but because of growing campuses and the need for larger area, many chose to move to the suburbs, including Osaka University.

Kansai University (関西大学)
Osaka City University (大阪市立大学)
Osaka University of Economics (大阪経済大学)
Osaka Institute of Technology (大阪工業大学)
Osaka Jogakuin College (大阪女学院大学)
Osaka Seikei University (大阪成蹊大学)
Soai University (相愛大学)
Osaka University of Arts (大阪芸術大学) , Minamikawachi District, Osaka
Osaka University of Education (大阪教育大学)

Libraries

International Institute for Children's Literature, Osaka
Osaka Public Nakanoshima Library