Why it looks like this

Toyotomi Hideyoshi built Osaka Castle in 1583 and laid a merchant town beside it on a grid that still holds: Midōsuji and the other north–south suji cross the east–west dōri in a pattern locals navigate by name alone. Canals cut through the blocks — Dōtonbori, dug by 1615, is now the neon heart of the city — earning Osaka the title 'city of water'.

As the rice market of Tokugawa Japan, Osaka became the country's kitchen and its merchant capital; the modern city doubled the pattern with twin centres, Umeda ('Kita') in the north and Namba ('Minami') in the south, joined by the grid between.