Where to stay in Osaka

Minami is the southern centre: Dōtonbori and its canal, the covered length of Shinsaibashi-suji, the food streets of Sennichimae and the Kuromon market on its edge, Amerikamura west of it and the electronics of Nipponbashi to the south. It is the loudest, densest and most legible part of the city, and it is where Osaka's reputation for eating comes from. Namba underneath it is a transport knot in its own right, including the one train that reaches Kansai airport without a change. What you give up is quiet, and there is no version of this area that is quiet.

The northern centre, and the other half of the only real question Osaka asks. One station complex carries JR, three subway lines, Hankyu and Hanshin, and around it sits the largest hotel cluster in western Japan, the department stores, and Nakanoshima on the river below. This is where you stay if Osaka is a base rather than a destination: Kyoto, Kobe and Nara are all half an hour or less. It is busy rather than lively — the eating is good and the drinking is expensive and largely behind closed doors in Kita-Shinchi.

The old merchant grid between the two centres, laid out on the river. Pharmaceutical houses on Dōshōmachi, the stock exchange at Kitahama, a run of pre-war buildings, and business hotels at business rates. It empties at the weekend, which is exactly why people choose it: it is a fifteen-minute walk or one subway stop from either centre, and you can hear yourself think.

The southern knot: the JR loop, the Kintetsu line to Nara, two subways, a park with a zoo in it, Shitennō-ji, and the tallest building in Japan standing over the station. It is cheaper than either centre, better connected than most of the city, and it has the one thing central Osaka lacks — open ground.

The Shinkansen station, and almost nothing else. Offices, business hotels and a subway stop, on the north bank of the Yodo. Nobody walks anywhere here for pleasure. It earns its place on this list the way Kyoto Station does: when the trains decide the trip — an early departure west, a late arrival, a base for several cities in a week — this is the right answer, and a guide that hides it is not being helpful.

A single-purpose area on reclaimed land west of the city: the park, the hotels built to serve it, and the Yumesaki line back to the centre. Nothing here is incidental — you are staying by the gates because you are going through them, probably early and probably with children. Treated as a general Osaka base it is a poor one, and it is not offered as one.

Under Tsūtenkaku, ten minutes from Minami: kushikatsu counters, a tower built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1956, and the cheapest rooms of any area in any city this site covers. They are cheap for a reason, and it should be said plainly rather than hinted at. Immediately south is Airin, Japan's largest day-labourer district; much of the accommodation here and around Shin-Imamiya was built as workers' lodging and later converted for travellers, which is why a private room costs what a hostel bed costs elsewhere. It is a residential district of people living on low incomes — not a spectacle, and not a warning.