Ikeda

Ikeda City lies in the northwestern part of Osaka Prefecture at the northern edge of the Osaka Plain. It offers many sightseeing attractions, including Satsukiyama Park, famous for cherry blossoms in spring and autumn foliage, Ikeda Castle Ruins Park (the former stronghold of the Ikeda clan, a local warlord family), and the Cup Noodles Museum (Instant Ramen Invention Memorial). The city center was once called ‘Kureha no Sato,’ and you can still find traces of that past in places such as Kureha-cho and Kureha Shrine. In the late Heian period, a shōen estate system was established here, and in the Nanboku-chō period, Ikeda Castle—the Ikeda clan’s stronghold—was built. The castle was abandoned in the Sengoku period, and in 1574 Araki Murashige, who drove the Ikeda clan out, moved his base from Ikeda Castle to Itami Castle; from that point, Ikeda developed as a commercial city. Ikeda City is also known as the birthplace of Ichizō Kobayashi, founder of Hankyu Railway, and Momofuku Andō, inventor of the world’s first instant ramen (Chicken Ramen). In addition, Ikeda is known as a city of rakugo; in April 2007, it opened ‘Rakugo Museum,’ Japan’s first privately established rakugo museum.