Living in Uda City

A small city in eastern Nara that is about 50 minutes to central Osaka by express. The old castle town is designated as a nationally protected district, so the streetscape remains well preserved.

A small city in eastern Nara Prefecture, about 50 minutes by express from Haibara Station on the Kintetsu Osaka Line to Osaka-Uehommachi Station. The old castle town, with lattice-door, white-walled townhouses lined up below Uda-Matsuyama Castle, built in the early Edo period, is designated as a nationally important preservation district for groups of traditional buildings, and because the Nihon Shoki records that medicinal herbs were gathered here in the year 611 under Empress Suiko, it is called the 'land of medicinal herbs' as Japan's first documented medicinal herb hunting ground. However, compared with central Osaka the commercial area is small and, being mountainous, train frequency is not generous either. It suits single-person households and retired newcomers who commute to Osaka and still want a deeply historic old town and nature beside them.