Gifu

Gifu is a city in the south-central part of Gifu Prefecture, Japan, and serves as the prefectural capital. The city played an important strategic role in Japanese history because of its central location: during the Sengoku period various warlords used the area as a base to unify and control Japan, among them Oda Nobunaga, who gave the region the name it carries today. Gifu continued to flourish after Japan unification, first as an important post station on the Edo-period Nakasendo highway and later as one of Japan fashion centers; it has been designated a core city and is part of the Chukyo metropolitan area centered on Nagoya.