Osaka travel guide

Top 10 sights in Osaka

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1© Oilstreet · CC BY 2.5

   Abeno Harukas

   A 300-metre tower at Tennōji finished in 2014, the tallest building in Japan until 2023, with a department store in the base and the Harukas 300 observatory on three top floors. The view runs from the Osaka plain to the Inland Sea, and there is an art museum inside.

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2. 

   2© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Osaka Castle

   Castle in Osaka built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1583 and destroyed twice. The present keep is a concrete reconstruction of 1931; the stone walls include blocks weighing over a hundred tonnes.

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3. 

   3© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Shitennō-ji Temple

   A temple traditionally founded by Prince Shōtoku in 593, and the first state-sponsored Buddhist temple in Japan. Its layout — gate, pagoda and main hall on one axis — is the earliest in the country and is named after it; the buildings are concrete rebuilds, the plan is original.

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4. 

   4© Freddo · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Universal Studios Japan

   A theme park opened on 31 March 2001, the first Universal park outside the United States, whose Wizarding World and Super Nintendo World are the reason it competes with Tokyo Disney. Express passes and a timed entry ticket for Nintendo World are effectively compulsory.

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5. 

   5© Mc681 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Tsūtenkaku

   A 103-metre tower of 1956 in Shinsekai, a replacement for a 1912 original that was scrapped for its steel in the war. The observation deck holds Billiken, a good-luck figure whose feet are rubbed for luck; deep-fried kushikatsu alleys run out from the base.

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6. 

   6© The original uploader was Bujatt at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Church of the Light

   Ando Tadao's chapel of 1989 at Ibaraki, a concrete box whose east wall is cut with a cross-shaped slot so that light alone forms the cross. It is a working church of the United Church of Christ in Japan, so visits must be arranged in advance around services.

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7. 

   7© Kang-min Liu · CC BY 2.0

   Dōtonbori

   Entertainment street in Osaka along a canal cut in 1612. Its neon signs, among them the running Glico man of 1935, are the most photographed sight in the city.

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8. 

   8© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

   One of the largest aquariums in the world, opened in 1990 on the theme of the Pacific Rim, with whale sharks in a 5,400-cubic-metre central tank. Visitors descend a spiral so that the same tanks are seen at successive depths, which is the design's real achievement.

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   9

   Sumiyoshi Taisha

   The head shrine of all Sumiyoshi shrines, whose four halls are built in sumiyoshi-zukuri — straight roof lines, no curve, no Chinese influence — reckoned the oldest surviving shrine style in Japan. The steep arched Sorihashi bridge is its emblem.

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10. 

    10© 投稿者が撮影 · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Ishiyama Hongan-ji

    The fortress temple of the Ikkō-ikki, leagues of warrior priests and commoners, which held out against Oda Nobunaga for eleven years until 1580. Osaka Castle was built on the site; a stone marker and panels on the south side are all that record it.

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Popular tickets & tours in Osaka

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1. 

   1© Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan · CC BY 2.0

   Shinsekai

   District of Osaka laid out for the 1903 exhibition, with its Tsutenkaku tower answering the Eiffel Tower. Left behind after the war, it is known for kushikatsu skewers.

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2. 

   2© Zairon · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Umeda

   The northern commercial heart of Osaka around Osaka and Umeda stations, of department stores and a labyrinth of underground arcades. The Floating Garden Observatory of the Umeda Sky Building, reached by an escalator crossing open air between two towers, is its set piece.

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3. 

   3© Chris Gladis from Osaka, Japan · CC BY 2.0

   Expoland

   The amusement zone of Expo '70 at Suita, which ran as a park for over thirty years and closed in 2007 after a fatal coaster accident. The site is now part of the Expo Commemoration Park, where Okamoto Tarō's Tower of the Sun still stands.

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4. 

   4© ええんやで中村 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Namba

   The terminal district at the south end of Dōtonbori and the centre of Osaka's Minami, where Namba Parks steps a garden up eight roof levels and Hōzenji Yokochō keeps a moss-covered Buddha in a lantern-lit lane. Food density here is the highest in the city.

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   5

   Daisen Kofun

   The largest kofun in Japan, 486 metres long, traditionally the tomb of Emperor Nintoku and part of the Mozu-Furuichi group listed by UNESCO in 2019. Its keyhole shape is only legible from the air; the Sakai city hall observation lobby and the site museum model are the practical options.

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6. 

   6© Did1335 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Katsuō-ji Temple

   A mountain temple at Minoh founded in 765, whose name means winning temple and which is filled with tens of thousands of daruma dolls left by petitioners. The Minoh waterfall walk with its autumn maples is on the same trip.

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7. 

   7© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Osaka Castle Park

   A 106-hectare park around Osaka Castle, with the Nishinomaru garden's six hundred cherry trees and a plum grove of over a thousand trees. The moat walk, the largest stone in the walls at about 130 tonnes, and joggers circling the whole thing are the daily scene.

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8. 

   8© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   National Museum of Art, Osaka

   A wholly underground art museum on Nakanoshima, opened in 2004, with only a stainless steel entrance sculpture of bamboo shoots above ground. Its collection is postwar Japanese and international, and the Museum of Oriental Ceramics is next door.

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9. 

   9© KENPEI · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Tennōji Zoo

   An eleven-hectare zoo in Tennōji Park, opened on 1 January 1915 and the third oldest in Japan, holding about a thousand animals. It sits directly against Shinsekai and Tsūtenkaku, which makes it the natural stop on a south Osaka day with children.

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10. 

    10© 663highland · CC BY-SA 4.0

    CupNoodles Museum Osaka Ikeda

    A museum at Ikeda on the site where Ando Momofuku invented instant noodles in a shed in 1958, after a year of trial and error. Visitors design their own cup noodle, and the chicken ramen workshop makes the noodles from flour by hand.

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