Ōsaka means "large hill" or "large slope". It is unclear when this name gained prominence over Naniwa, but the oldest written evidence for the name dates back to 1496.
By the Edo period

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Origins: Jōmon and Yayoi period
In the Jōmon period (7,000 BCE), Osaka was mostly submerged by the Seto Inland Sea, and the small Uemachi-daichi plateau (12 km long and 2.5 km

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Geography
The city's west side is open to Osaka Bay, and is otherwise completely surrounded by more than ten satellite cities, all of them in Osaka Prefecture, with one exception: the city of Amagasaki, belonging to Hyōgo Prefecture,

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Population numbers have been recorded in Osaka since as early as 1873, in the early Meiji era. According to the census in 2005, there were 2,628,811 residents in Osaka, an increase of 30,037 or

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The Osaka City Council is the city's local government formed under the Local Autonomy Law. The council has eighty-nine seats, allocated to

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The gross city product of Osaka in fiscal year 2004 was ¥21.3 trillion, an increase of 1.2% over the previous year. The figure accounts for about 55% of

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Osaka's sprawling cityscape has been described as "only surpassed by Tokyo as a showcase of the Japanese urban phenomenon".
• Central Osaka looking north from the Abeno Harukas observation deck (2014)
• Osaka skyline towards

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