Osaka is the second-largest city of Japan, the capital of Osaka Prefecture, and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the world. The city was founded at the turn of the third-century AD, with the fertile plains allowing for local settlers to engage in rice farming and build a thriving settlement which came to include a grand shrine and a harbor. It was originally known as Naniwa-tsu, and it became the most busy port in Japan. In 645 AD, Emperor Kotoku built the Naniwa Nagara-Toyosaki Palace in Naniwa, making it the capital of Japan until 655, when the capital was moved to Asuka in Nara Prefecture. Osaka continued to serve as a major trade hub for Japan, Korea, and China, and it returned to being the capital from 744 to 745, when the capital was moved to Nara. In 1496, Jōdo Shinshū Buddhists established their headquarters at Ishiyama Hongan-ji on the site of the old Naniwa Imperial Palace; it was around this time that the city became known as Osaka, meaning "large hill". Nobunaga Oda began a decade-long siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji in 1570 and razed the Ikko-Ikki temple after its fall, and Hideyoshi Toyotomi built Osaka Castle atop its ruins in 1583; this castle was itself besieged by the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Osaka Campaign of 1614-1615. Osaka became Japan's primary economic center, with a large percentage of the population belonging to the merchant class. In 1837, a quarter of the city was razed during Oshio Heihachiro's failed rebellion, and, on 1 January 1868, Osaka was reopened to foreign trade. After the Meiji Restoration and the move of the capital to Tokyo, Osaka fell into decline, transforming into an industrial center which was nicknamed the "Manchester of the Orient". Its rapid industrialization attracted many Korean immigrants, and the city's educational system produced a highly-literate and mostly middle-class population. On 13 March 1945, during World War II, 329 US Air Force Superfortress heavy bombers raided Osaka, destroying 25 square miles of the city; the city was bombed again twice in June 1945 and again on 14 August, a day before Japan's surrender. The destroyed third of Osaka was quickly rebuilt, and the city enjoyed even greater prosperity after the war. During the 1980s, Osaka was considered a mob town in the style of Chicago during Prohibition, and the adjacent port city of Kobe was also hard hit due to the preeminence of the Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate in the Kansai region. By the dawn of the 21st century, however, Osaka was one of the most expensive cities in the world, as it had become a major financial center. By 2012, Osaka had a population of 2,668,586 people, with its metropolitan area having a population of 19,303,000 people.
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