Nakanoshima, Osaka Live Cam

Nakanoshima is a narrow island in the middle of Osaka, three kilometres long between two branches of the river. The webcam is at a newspaper office and looks over the expressway and the Higobashi bridge.

Under the shoguns this island held the rice warehouses of the feudal domains, which sold their harvests here through brokers. The forward market that grew out of that trade in the eighteenth century is usually described as the first of its kind anywhere.

The warehouses became banks, offices and the city hall, and the island now carries most of the civic institutions: a public hall from 1918, museums at the western end and a library with a domed reading room.