is an ancient castle town and the center of

Kitakyushu is a Cities of Japan, city located in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2019, Kitakyushu has an estimated population of 940,978, making it the second-largest city in both Fukuoka Prefecture and the island of Kyushu after the city of Fuku ...

, Japan, guarding the

Straits of Shimonoseki The or the Straits of Shimonoseki is the stretch of water separating Honshu and Kyushu, two of Japan's four main islands. On the Honshu side of the strait is Shimonoseki (, which contributed "Kan" () to the name of the strait) and on the Kyushu ...

between

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separ ...

and

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surroun ...

with its suburb Moji. Kokura is also the name of the penultimate station on the southbound San'yō Shinkansen line, which is owned by

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and ...

. Ferries connect Kokura with Matsuyama on Shikoku, and

Busan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, w ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

History

Edo period

The Ogasawara and Hosokawa clans were ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' at

Kokura Castle is a castle in Kitakyushu, Japan. It was built by Hosokawa Tadaoki starting in 1602, with construction completed in 1608. History Construction of Kokura Castle began in 1602 and was completed in 1608. It was the property of the Ogasawara clan ...

during the Edo period (1603–1868). Miyamoto Musashi, samurai swordsman, author of '' The Book of Five Rings'' and founder of the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryū, famous for its use of two swords, lived in the Kokura castle under the patronage of the Ogasawara and Hosokawa clans briefly during 1634.

Meiji period

After the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Kokura was the seat of government for Kokura Prefecture. When the municipal system of cities, towns and villages was introduced, Kokura Town was one of 25 towns in the prefecture, which later merged with

Fukuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 Square kilometre, km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders S ...

. Kokura was upgraded to city status in 1900.

World War II

Kokura was the primary target for the "

Fat Man "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the fir ...

" bomb on August 9, 1945, but on the morning of the raid, the city was obscured by morning fog. Kokura had also been mistaken for the neighboring city of

Yahata was a city in Japan until it was absorbed into the newly created city of Kitakyushu is a Cities of Japan, city located in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2019, Kitakyushu has an estimated population of 940,978, making it the second-l ...

the day before by the reconnaissance missions. Since the mission commander Major

Charles Sweeney Charles William Sweeney (December 27, 1919 – July 16, 2004) was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and the pilot who flew '' Bockscar'' carrying the Fat Man atomic bomb to the Japanese city of Nagasaki on Augu ...

had orders to drop the bomb visually and not by radar, he diverted to the secondary target,

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

Post-war

When the city of

was created in 1963, Kokura was divided into

Kokura Kita is an ancient Jōkamachi, castle town and the center of Kitakyushu, Japan, guarding the Kanmon Straits, Straits of Shimonoseki between Honshu and Kyushu with its suburb Moji-ku, Kitakyushu, Moji. Kokura is also the name of the Kokura Station ...

ward in the north, and Kokura Minami ward in the south.

Notable residents

Matsumoto Seichō Matsumoto (松本 or 松元, "base of the pine tree") may refer to: Places * Matsumoto, Nagano (松本市), a city ** Matsumoto Airport, an airport southwest of Matsumoto, Nagano * Matsumoto, Kagoshima (松元町), a former town now part of the c ...

– writer * Miyamoto Musashi – swordsman and rōnin * Mori Ōgai – physician, translator, novelist and poet *

Tetsuya Theodore Fujita was a Japanese-American meteorologist whose research primarily focused on severe weather. His research at the University of Chicago on severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and typhoons revolutionized the knowledge of each. Although he is ...

– Meteorologist

Notable figures born in Kokura

Tsukasa Hojo is a Japanese manga artist. He studied technical design while still at Kyushu Sangyo University, where he began to draw manga. He worked on several one-shot stories before releasing his serialized works: '' Cat's Eye'', ''City Hunter'' and ''A ...

mangaka A is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As of 2006, about 3,000 professional manga artists were working in Japan. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist bef ...

Leiji Matsumoto is a Japanese mangaka, creator of several anime and manga series. His wife Miyako Maki is also a manga artist. Early life Matsumoto was the middle child of a family of seven brothers, and, in his early childhood, Matsumoto was given a 35m ...

Masumi Mitsui Masumi Mitsui, (7 October 1887 – 22 April 1987), was a Japanese-born Canadian veteran of World War I who had his property confiscated and was detained during World War II as part of the Japanese-Canadian internment. In World ...

, 10th Battalion, CEF. *

Linda Yamamoto , Chinese: 山本稲; pinyin: ''shan bendao'') is a Japanese singer and model whose latest hit song was in 1973. Biography Yamamoto was born March 4, 1951 in Kitakyushu to a Japanese mother and an American father. Her father was a U.S. servicem ...

, singer and

J-pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

idol *

Satoru Nomura is a Japanese Yakuza from Fukuoka Prefecture. He is the fifth president of the yakuza group Kudo-kai. Early life Nomura was born in 1946 as the sixth and youngest child in a rich peasant family. As a teenager, he was addicted to gambling and de ...

, Yakuza godfather, leader of the Kudo-kai

Festivals

The Gion Festival of Kokura is called the "Gion of

Drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

s" and celebrates the life of local folk-hero Muhomatsu.

Notable facts

The city is the site of the main

dojo A is a hall or place for immersive learning or meditation. This is traditionally in the field of martial arts, but has been seen increasingly in other fields, such as meditation and software development. The term literally means "place of the ...

(honbu) of Miyamoto Musashi's

sword A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

, Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryū.

References

{{Authority control Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Kitakyushu