History
Sakai’s most striking feature predates the city’s historical records entirely: Daisen Kofun, a massive keyhole-shaped burial mound traditionally identified as the tomb of Emperor Nintoku, is among the largest tombs anywhere in the world by ground area — larger, by that measure, than Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza or China’s First Emperor’s mausoleum complex, though its low, forested profile makes it far less visually dramatic at ground level. It anchors the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun Group, a cluster of similar 4th- and 5th-century burial mounds across Sakai and neighboring cities that became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.
A merchant republic, briefly
Sakai’s second defining era came over a millennium later, during the politically fragmented Sengoku period, when the city’s wealthy merchant class secured effective self-governance and grew rich on trade — including, notably, importing and manufacturing firearms after the Portuguese introduced them to Japan in 1543. Contemporary European visitors, including Jesuit missionaries, reportedly described Sakai’s self-governing merchant structure as comparable to the Italian city-states, Venice in particular — an unusual arrangement in a country otherwise organized around feudal domains, and one that ended when Oda Nobunaga and later the unified Tokugawa state brought Sakai firmly under central authority.
From gunsmiths to chef’s knives
Sakai’s Sengoku-era gunsmithing expertise didn’t disappear once firearms production declined — it redirected into bladesmithing more broadly, and the city’s swordsmiths and blacksmiths gradually built a reputation for blade quality that, by the modern era, had shifted mostly toward kitchen knives. Today Sakai supplies roughly 90% of Japan’s professional-grade kitchen knife market, and its knives are widely sought after by chefs internationally as some of the finest available.
Getting there and getting around
Sakai sits directly south of Osaka City and is reachable from central Osaka in about 20–30 minutes by train. Daisen Kofun and the surrounding kofun cluster are within walking distance of Mozu Station; the city’s traditional crafts district is a separate area better reached by a short additional train or bus ride.
