Nakasu

Nakasu (中洲) is the red-light district which exists between the sandbank of the Naka River (那珂川, Nakagawa) and the Hakata River (博多川, Hakatagawa) in Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is named after a popular, but very short-lived, entertainment quarter of Edo, which existed in the late 18th century. The name "Nakasu" can be translated as "the island in the middle" as Nakasu is an island between two rivers.

Overview

Nakasu is the largest red-light district in the western Japan area next to Osaka. The number of restaurants and stores, including adult-entertainment establishments, is approximately 3,500; and over 60,000 people visit Nakasu every night. Also, Nakasu is the home to a number of fashionable restaurants. Notable features in Nakasu includes the view of neon signs from the Fukuhaku Deai Bridge (福博であい橋), and Yatai stalls along the Naka River. Once, fans of the local baseball team, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, dove from the Fukuhaku Deai Bridge into the river after the team won the championship. The nearest subway station from Nakasu is the Nakasu-Kawabata Station of the Fukuoka City Subway.

Nakasu (Edo)

The Nakasu (中州, lit. "sandbank in the middle") was a short-lived, but vibrant and popular entertainment district in Edo, Japan. It was built upon an artificial landfill in the Sumida River, at a place called Mitsumata (三又, "Three Forks"), in 1771, and lasted until 1790, when the landfill was removed.

Mitsumata, a short distance from the Yoshiwara pleasure district, had long been a popular spot for entertainment. Teahouses, restaurants, and houseboats were common there, and it was a popular site for pleasure boating as well. A famous, but likely fictional, tale of a courtesan named Takao II took place there in the 1660s; she was bought from the Yoshiwara by daimyo Date Tsunamune for her weight in gold, and when brought on Date's pleasure boat to Mitsumata, she tried to leap overboard, to drown herself, out of depression. She was instead murdered, stabbed, by Tsunamune.

In any case, by 1771, Nakasu had become popular enough, and crowded with enough restaurants and teahouses, that the shogunate decided to create an artificial landfill jutting out into the river. There gradually appeared many more places of entertainment, and "by 1779, there were eighteen restaurants (some catering exclusively to daimyo deputies), ninety-three teahouses, fourteen boathouses, and at least twenty-seven geisha." This made it the greatest concentration of famous restaurants and teahouses anywhere in Japan.