The refers to a 1,600 km² area of flat land, the largest plain in the Kinki region, including a large part of

Osaka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Nar ...

and a southeastern portion of

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

. It is bordered on the north by the Hokusetsu Mount Range, on the east by the Ikoma Mount Range and

Kongō Range The is a mountain range on the borders of Nara and Osaka Prefectures on the island of Honshū in the southwest of central Japan. The range separates the Osaka Plain and the Nara Basin, and forms a natural place for the boundary between the pref ...

, on the south by the Izumi Mount Range, and on the west by

Osaka Bay Osaka Bay (大阪湾 ''Ōsaka-wan'' ) is a bay in western Japan. As an eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea, it is separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Kii Channel and from the neighbor western part of the Inland Sea by the Akashi Strait. ...

. On occasion, it is called the after the names of former

Settsu Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises the southeastern part of Hyōgo Prefecture and the northern part of Osaka Prefecture. It was also referred to as or . Osaka and Osaka Castle were the main center of the province. Most of Set ...

Kawachi Province was a province of Japan in the eastern part of modern Osaka Prefecture. It originally held the southwestern area that was split off into Izumi Province. It was also known as . Geography The area was radically different in the past, with Kawac ...

and

Izumi Province :''The characters ''泉州'' are also used for the name of the Chinese city of Quanzhou''. was a province of Japan in the area of southern Osaka Prefecture. Tango bordered on Kii to the south, Yamato and Kawachi to the west, and Settsu to ...

.Nihon Daihyakka Zenshū, Shōgakkan Geologically, the plain is considered to be an alluvial plain mainly consisting of hills and plateaus created during

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

and deltas created during

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

by current rivers such as the Yodo River and Yamato River. Prominent hills and plateaus include the Senri Hills, Toyonaka Plateau, and Itami Plateau to the north; the Hirakata Hills and Katano Plateau to the northeast; and the Kasen Hills, Shinodayama Plateau, Mikunigaoka Plateau, and Uemachi Plateau to the south. Major streams are the Muko River, Ina River, Ibaraki River, and Akuta River located in the northern portion; and the Yodo River and Yamato River in the eastern section; and the Ishizu River, Ōtsu River, and Onosato River in the southwestern part of the plain.

References

Plains of Japan Landforms of Osaka Prefecture Landforms of Hyōgo Prefecture {{osaka-geo-stub