Short answers, pulled from the story.
Osaka had an estimated population of 2,816,247 as of the 1st of October 2025. It is the third-most populous city in Japan, after the special wards of Tokyo and the city of Yokohama, with a population density of about 12,505 people per square kilometer.
Osaka, then called Naniwa, served as Japan's imperial capital twice. Emperor Kotoku built his Naniwa Nagara-Toyosaki Palace there in 645, making it the capital until 655. Emperor Shomu declared it capital again in 744, a status it held until 745.
The Dojima Rice Exchange, established in Osaka in 1697, is where the world's first futures market came into existence. Merchants there traded rice that had not yet been harvested, creating a financial instrument that predates modern commodity futures markets.
Osaka hosted Expo '70, the first world's fair ever held in an Asian country. It then hosted Expo 2025 at Yumeshima Island in Konohana-ku from April to October 2025, with a projected visitor count of approximately 28 million. This made Osaka the third city in history to host the World Expo twice.
On the 13th of March 1945, a total of 329 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers raided Osaka, destroying 25 square miles of the city in a raid that lasted nearly the entire night. The United States bombed the city again twice in June 1945 and once more on the 14th of August 1945, one day before Japan's surrender.
The world's first futures market originated at the Dojima Rice Exchange in Osaka, established in 1697. Osaka merchants devised the system as an outgrowth of storing and trading rice on behalf of feudal lords, creating contracts to sell rice not yet harvested - a foundational moment in financial history.