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is an ancient castle town and the center of
Kitakyushu is a 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 Fukuoka. It is one o ...
, Japan, guarding the Straits of Shimonoseki 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 s ...
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 surround ...
with its suburb
Moji Moji may refer to: * ''Onji'' or ''hyōon moji'' (表音文字), phonic characters used in counting beats in Japanese poetry * Moji-ku, Kitakyūshū, ward (district) of the city of Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan ** Moji Station in that war ...
. 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 i ...
. Ferries connect Kokura with
Matsuyama 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan and also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243541 househo ...
on
Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...
, 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 ...
in
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 period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...
'' 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 cl ...
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 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 km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders Saga Prefecture to the southwest, K ...
. 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 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
Kitakyushu is a 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 Fukuoka. It is one o ...
was created in 1963, Kokura was divided into
Kokura Kita is an ancient castle town and the center of Kitakyushu, Japan, guarding the Straits of Shimonoseki between Honshu and Kyushu with its suburb Moji. Kokura is also the name of the penultimate station on the southbound San'yō Shinkansen line, ...
ward in the north, and Kokura Minami ward in the south.


Notable residents

* Matsumoto Seichō – writer * Miyamoto Musashi – swordsman and rōnin * Mori Ōgai – physician, translator, novelist and poet * Tetsuya Theodore Fujita – 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 3 ...
,
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 ...
*
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 ...
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 ...
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 co ...
, Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryū.


See also

* Kokura Kita-ku * Kokura Minami-ku * Kokura Prefecture *
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...


References

{{Authority control Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Kitakyushu