was a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in

Saitama Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km2 (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. On May 1, 2001, Urawa was merged with the cities of

Ōmiya Ōmiya 大宮 is a Japanese word originally used for the imperial palace or shrines, now a common name, and may refer to: People *Ōmiya (surname), a Japanese surname *Ōmiya, or is a female character in ''The Tale of Genji'', an 11th-century nove ...

and

Yono YONO (You Only Need One) is an integrated digital banking platform offered by State Bank of India (SBI) to enable users to access a variety of financial and other services such as flight, train, bus and taxi bookings, online shopping, or medical ...

to create the city of Saitama. Since April 1, 2003, the area of former Urawa City has been divided into 4 wards: Urawa-ku, Midori-ku, Minami-ku and Sakura-ku of Saitama City. The city hall and the prefectural government building are located in Urawa-ku.

History

Origin and pre-modern history

In the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, the area that became Urawa flourished as a posting station of the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

, a highway connecting Edo (modern-day

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

) and

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. But it was not as big a town as Iwatsuki, which was the only

castle town A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle. Castle towns were common in Medieval Europe. Some examples include small towns like Alnwick and Arundel, which are still dominated by their castles. In Western Europe, ...

in the area of the modern-day city of Saitama.

Modern Urawa

* In 1869, the Prefectural Government of Urawa Prefecture was set up, and the Government's Office was located in Urawa. * In 1871, Iwatsuki, Urawa, and Oshi Prefectures merged to form

, and Urawa became the capital of this new Prefecture. * The

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST (02:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Extensive firestorms an ...

heavily damaged Tokyo and many nearby cities. Although Urawa is not far from Tokyo, it suffered less damage than to Tokyo,

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

, and other cities in

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...

, so many intellectuals, especially painters, moved to Urawa, and this old posting station started to change into a modern city. * Several neighboring villages then merged into Urawa, and in 1934, Urawa became a city.

Saitama City era

* On May 1, 2001, Urawa was merged with the cities of Ōmiya and Yono to create the new capital city of Saitama. At that time, the city had a population of 488,000. * On April 1, 2003, when Saitama became a

designated city A , also known as a or , is a Japanese city that has a population greater than 500,000 and has been designated as such by order of the Cabinet of Japan under Article 252, Section 19, of the Local Autonomy Law. Designated cities are delegat ...

, the former area of Urawa City has been divided into 4 wards: Urawa-ku, Midori-ku, Minami-ku and Sakura-ku.

External links

Internet Archive of Urawa's website
Dissolved municipalities of Saitama Prefecture Populated places disestablished in 2001 {{Saitama-geo-stub