Kansai

Home of Kyoto, the old capital, the Kansai region is the cultural and historical heart of Japan with 11% of its land area and 22,757,897 residents as of 2010. The Keihanshin region, comprising Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, is the second most populated in Japan after the Greater Tokyo Area. Four of Japan's national parks lie within the borders of Kansai, in whole or in part, and the area also contains six of the seven top prefectures in terms of national treasures.

Whereas the Kanto region is symbolic of standardization throughout Japan, the Kansai region displays many more idiosyncrasies – the culture in Kyoto, the mercantilism of Osaka, the history of Nara, or the cosmopolitanism of Kobe – and represents the focus of counterculture in Japan. This East-West rivalry has deep historical roots, particularly from the Edo period - With a samurai population of less than 1% the culture of the merchant city of Osaka stood in sharp contrast to that of Edo, the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate, and many characteristic traits of Kansai people descend from Osaka merchant culture.

Kansai is well known for its food, especially Osaka, with some popular dished being takoyaki, okonomiyaki, kitsune udon and kushikatsu. Kyoto is also famous for its traditional cuisine like kaiseki. Another specialty of the region is sake, with the areas of Nada-Gogō and Fushimi producing 45% of all sake in Japan. As opposed to food from Eastern Japan, food in the Kansai area tends to be sweeter, and foods such as nattō tend to be less popular.

The varieties of Japanese spoken in the region are collectively known as the Kansai dialects. The Kansai dialects are typified by the Osaka dialect, being that Osaka is the largest city in the region and thus speakers of the Osaka dialect gained the most media exposure over the last century. The pitch accent in Kansai dialects is very different from the standard Tokyo accent, so non-Kansai Japanese can recognise Kansai people easily from that alone. Many words and grammar structures in Kansai dialects are contractions of their classical Japanese equivalents.

The Kansai dialects are quite popular in Japanese literature, manga, and anime as a choice for representing a character somewhat "different" from the norm. The characters speaking Kansai dialect are often associated with the stereotypical Osakan image of being humorous, miserly, epicurean, gaudy, vulgar, energetic, or even involved with yakuza.