Meet Osaka, the host city of the Global Baseball Games

The Global Baseball Games host city, the CARNEXT SAMURAI JAPAN SERIES, is Osaka, Japan. 

Osaka, the most populous city in the Osaka Prefecture, has 2.7 million inhabitants. It is located in the Kansai region of Honshu island. The city's west side is open to Osaka Bay and is otherwise surrounded by satellite cities.

Osaka is a significant financial centre home to multinational electronics corporations such as Panasonic and Sharp.

It is also recognized as one of Japan's most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities. Osaka is an international research and development centre represented by several major universities, notably Osaka University, Osaka Metropolitan University and Kansai University.

The Morinomiya ruins in the central Chuo-ku district show evidence of the first settlements in the area, dating to the year 500 BC.

The Osaka castle, one of Japan's most famous landmarks, is also located in Chuo-ku.

The Sumiyoshi Grand Shrine, a Shinto religious shrine, is located in the southern Sumiyoshi-ku ward.

Osaka grew as one of Japan's primary economic centres from 1600 to 1850 but became predominantly an industrial centre in the last decades of the XIX century.

The municipal government introduced a comprehensive poverty relief system in the XX century.

During World War II, Osaka came under air raids, which destroyed 65 square kilometres (or 25 square miles) of the city. Reconstruction was fully completed by the end of the 1950s.

Osaka will host the Global Baseball Games at the city Dome in Nishi-ku, the western part of the town centre and one of 24 Osaka's wards.

The Dome opened in 1997 as the home of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes and is now one of the homes of the Orix Buffaloes, resulting from a merger between the Orix Blue Wave and the Kintetsu Buffaloes. The Buffaloes also play at the Kobe Sports Park Stadium. The Kyocera Corporation earned naming rights from the 2006 season.

The Hanshin Tigers also use the venue for their home opener and the home games in August, when the Koshien Stadium hosts the High School finals.

The Dome has a capacity of 36,000 seats.

The playing surface is made with MS Craft Baseball Turf, an artificial turf specially developed for baseball by Mizuno in collaboration with Sekisui Jushi. The pile (turf leaves) is specially processed into a shape similar to natural grass, which provides excellent shock absorption and reduces the burden on players' feet. It is 122 meters (or 400.3 feet) in the centre and 100 metres (or 328 feet) at the foul poles.

Photo care of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry