Kyoto

The Kansai Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe region is a political, cultural, and economic power center at constant odds with the Eastern power center of Tokyo-Yokohama, which together with the central power center of Nagoya constitute around 1/2 of Japan’s population. Whereas Tokyo has been a political power center in Japan since before the Edo, or Tokugawa period (1600-1868), and has only become a force of industrial and cultural output since the postwar period, Osaka traditionally held cultural and economic hegemony. Osaka’s contemporary role in Japanese culture is a still a strong one however.