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Umeda (梅田) is a commercial district in
Osaka,
Japan, best known as the city's main northern railway terminus (Osaka
Station,
Umeda Station). Umeda is also known for shopping: three of the city's
largest department stores (Hanshin, Hankyu, and Daimaru) are located
there, as well as several shopping malls such as Diamor Osaka, HEP Five,
HEP Navio, and Whity Osaka.
The district's name literally means "plum field." It was originally
written as "buried field" (埋田), because the area had been agricultural and
was filled in to accommodate the new train station in the 1870's. There
are several theories as to why the
kanji changed, although most people seem to believe that the old
characters merely carried a negative connotation.
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