Wakayama, Wakayama

Wakayama is the capital city of Wakayama Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan, on the island of Honshu at the northwest corner of the prefecture, and was historically the center of ancient Kii Province. Toyotomi Hideyoshi built a fortress there during the Sengoku period that became the predecessor of Wakayama Castle, and under the Edo-period Kii Tokugawa clan the town flourished as the seat of Kishu Domain; the city received core city status on April 1, 1997. More than half of its urban area was destroyed and over 1,200 people killed in a 1945 bombing, and as of December 2021 it had 351,391 residents across 208.84 square kilometers.