NAGOYA, sometimes Nogoya, one of the largest and most active of the cities of Japan, the chief town Aichi ken (province of Owari), and formerly the seat of the princes of Owari (one of the "three august families" closely allied to the Tokugawa line of shoguns), lies at the head of the shallow Owari Bay, about 30 miles from Yokai-ichi, its port, with which it communicates by light-draught steamers.

Nagoya is well known as one of the great seats of the pottery trade (though the master potters for the most part get their goods manufactured at Seto, about 13 miles distant, where the clay has been worked for wellnigh two thousand years); fans and enamel are also made in the city.

The castle of Nagoya, occupying about 400 acres of ground at the north side of the city, erected, in 1610, suffered comparatively little during the revolution of 1868, and is now the headquarters of the Nagoya military district, with extensive barracks and drill grounds. The central keep of the citadel is a remarkable structure, covering close upon half an acre, but rapidly diminishing in each of its five stories till the top room is only about 12 yards square. Gabled roofs and hanging rafters break the almost pyramid outline; and a pair of gold-plated dolphins 8 feet high form a striking finial. Both were removed in 1872, and one of them was at Vienna Exhibition in 1873; but they have been restored to their proper site.

Among the religious buildings perhaps the most interesting is the Kenchiu-ji, a monastery of the Jo-do sect, containing the burial-place of the princes of Owari. A superior court, a middle school, a girls’ school, a normal school, the prefecture, the telegraph and post-office, and the hospital are the principal foreign-style buildings in Nagoya.

The population is 325,000.