I was only in Fukuoka for two nights, but the names Fukuoka and Hakata often seemed interchangeable. Officially, the city is FUKUOKA ,and HAKATA is a ward (district) of the city, but the history of the names is interesting:
The place name Hakata has appeared in historical documents from as long ago as the Nara Period (710-784), when it began to prosper as a merchants’ town. Then in 1600, when a warrior lord named Kuroda Nagamasa was given land adjoining Hakata by Tokugawa Ieyasu — who three years later was to seize control of the whole country — Kuroda built a castle there and named it Fukuoka Castle after his hometown in present-day Okayama Prefecture. Since then, the area around the castle — where nobles and samurai had lived — has been called Fukuoka; while the old town — where merchants had lived — continued to be called Hakata.
In 1876, Hakata, then also known as Dai-Ni-Dai-ku, and Fukuoka, or Dai-Ichi-Dai-ku, were merged, and in 1878 the settlement was renamed Fukuoka-ku (福岡区) by the Fukuoka prefectural government, though the population of Hakata was 25,677 and that of Fukuoka was 20,410. It seems that the adminstration vote was 50-50, but the Mayor with the deciding vote was from Fukuoka, so that name was chosen. However, as a sop to the people of HAKATA the new railway station and district were given that name. |
