NAKASU

Nakasu is the major entertainment district of Fukuoka. Nakasu is very popular with the western population of Fukuoka and tourists.

Nakasu (中洲 ) is the entertainment 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" is translated as "the island in the middle" in English, and as the name indicates, the geography of Nakasu is shaped as the insular sandbank between two rivers.

Nakasu is one of the major entertainment districts in Japan, and one of the largest entertainment district in the western Japan area next to Osaka. The number of restaurants and stores including adult-entertainment establishments is around 3,500, and over 60,000 people visit Nakasu in every night. Nakasu is also the home to a number of fashionable restaurants. Notable features in Nakasu are the scene of neon signs from the Fukuhaku Deai Bridge (福博であい橋) , Yatai stalls along the Naka River, and the streets with a lot of adult-entertainment establishments. Once some fans of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, a Japanese baseball team, have dived into the river from the Fukuhaku Deai Bridge when the team has won the championship. The nearest subway station from Nakasu is the Nakasu-Kawabata Station of the Fukuoka City Subway.

In 1600, Kuroda Nagamasa, a daimyo of the Fukuoka-Han at that time, created Nakasu to connect between current Chūō-ku and Hakata-ku by building two bridges over the rivers at the sandbank: Higashi Nakajima Bridge and Nishi Nakajima Bridge (currently is Shōwa Street) . Present day of Nakasu has 18 bridges in total, 7 of them are built at the side of the Chūō-ku, and 11 at the side of the Hakata-ku. Once Nakasu was used to thrive with the Tamaya, a department store of long standing, and movie theatres, although the center of commerce has moved currently to the Tenjin and Daimyō districts in Chūō-ku.

After the establishment of a shopping complex, the Canal City Hakata at neighbouring Sumiyoshi district in 1996, the areas of Tenjin, Nakasu, and Hakata Station, all of which are located in the middle of the place between the Tenjin district and Canal City Hakata, are unified. The redevelopment of unification with adjacent Kawabata district is also in progress. On March 29, 2002, the Nakasu Special Investigator, a squad of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police, was formed and has patrolled to prevent violation. A huge commercial complex, the "gate's" was opened in 2006, at the site the Tamaya was located.

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