Francis Xavier reached Japan on 27 July 1549, with Anjiro and three other Jesuits, but he was not permitted to enter any port his ship arrived at until 15 August, when he went ashore at Kagoshima, the principal port of the province of Satsuma on the island of Kyūshū.

Kagoshima was the center of the territory of the Shimazu clan of samurai for many centuries.

Kagoshima was also a significant center of Christian activity in Japan prior to the imposition of bans against that religion in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Kagoshima was the birthplace and scene of the last stand of Saigō Takamori, a legendary figure in Meiji Japan in 1877 at the end of the Satsuma Rebellion.

Kagoshima was also the birthplace of Tōgō Heihachirō.

Kagoshima was targeted because of its largely expanded naval port as well as its position as a railway terminus.

was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū.

During the Sengoku Period, Satsuma was a fief of the Shimazu daimyo, who ruled much of southern Kyūshū from their castle at Kagoshima city.

Tōgō was born on 27 January 1848 ( by the Western calendar ) in the Kajiya-chō ( 加治屋町 ） district of the city of Kagoshima in Satsuma domain ( modern-day Kagoshima prefecture ), in feudal Japan, the third of four sons of Tōgō Sanetomo ( 1805-1867 ), a samurai serving the Shimazu daimyo, and Hori Masuko ( 1812-1901 ).

Tōgō's first experience at war was at the age of 15 during the Bombardment of Kagoshima ( August 1863 ), in which Kagoshima was shelled by the Royal Navy to punish the Satsuma daimyo for the death of Charles Lennox Richardson on the Tōkaidō highway the previous year ( the Namamugi Incident ), and the Japanese refusal to pay an indemnity in compensation.

Kuroda was born to a samurai-class family serving the Shimazu daimyo of Kagoshima, Satsuma domain in Kyūshū.

Matsukata was born into a samurai family in Kagoshima, Satsuma province ( present-day Kagoshima Prefecture ).

Matsukata was highly regarded by Ōkubo Toshimichi and Saigō Takamori, who used him as their liaison between Kyoto and the domain government in Kagoshima.

Yamamoto was born in Kagoshima in Satsuma Province ( now Kagoshima Prefecture ) as the son of samurai who served the Shimazu clan.

Ōkubo was born in Kagoshima, Satsuma Province, ( present-day Kagoshima Prefecture ) to Ōkubo Juemon a low-ranking retainer of Satsuma daimyō Shimazu Nariakira.

Ōyama was born in Kagoshima to a samurai family of the Satsuma han domain.

It was mounted on Fort Tenpozan at Kagoshima.

The British Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima and in retaliation bombarded the town.

But when Shimazu resisted the order to pay, a squadron of Royal Navy ships bombarded Kagoshima during the brief Anglo-Satsuma War the following year.

Historians debate the exact path he returned back by, but due to evidence attributed to the captain of his ship, he may have travelled through Tanegeshima and Minato, and avoided Kagoshima due to the hostility of the Daimyo.

is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu in Japan, and the largest city in the prefecture by some margin.

Kagoshima is approximately 40 minutes from Kagoshima Airport, and the city features large shopping districts and malls, is served by trams, and has many restaurants featuring Satsuma Province regional cuisine: kibi ( a kind of tiny fish ), tonkatsu ( caramelized pork, as opposed to the breaded version encountered elsewhere in Japan ), smoked eel, and karukan ( sweet cakes made from steamed yams and rice flour ).

Kagoshima has a humid subtropical climate, marked by cool, relatively dry winters, warm, wet springs, hot, wet summers and mild, wet falls.

The British demanded reparations and responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863.

Christianity had an impact on Japan, largely through the efforts of the Jesuits, led first by the Navarrese Saint Francis Xavier ( 1506 – 1552 ), who arrived in Kagoshima in southern Kyūshū in 1549.

It has a bay called Kagoshima Bay ( Kinkowan ), which is sandwiched by two peninsulas, Satsuma and Ōsumi.

More recent incidents are the sinking of a North Korean spy ship ( 100 ton class ) in 2001 by the coast guard, which was later salvaged and exhibited in Tokyo, and the abduction of an office clerk from a Kagoshima beach in 1978 by agents from the same country.

It is bordered by the Ariake inland sea and the Amakusa archipelago to the west, Fukuoka Prefecture and Ōita Prefecture to the north, Miyazaki Prefecture to the east, and Kagoshima Prefecture to the south.

Surrounded by the Pacific Ocean to the south and east, Ōita Prefecture to the north, and Kumamoto and Kagoshima Prefectures to the west.

Yakushima's electricity is more than 50 % hydroelectric, and surplus power has been used to produce hydrogen gas in a small experiment by Kagoshima University.

Starting in 1549, with the arrival of Francis Xavier at Kagoshima, a large missionary campaign, led by the Society of Jesus, began to shake Japan's social structures.

The city is served by the Nichinan Line of the JR Kyūshū railway system, which links it to the west to Shibushi in neighbouring Kagoshima Prefecture and to the north to the prefectural capital, Miyazaki.

It takes 25 minutes to reach Kagoshima City from Izumi by shinkansen.

It is the only city in Kagoshima Prefecture that is not bordered by the sea.

* Fukuhoku Yutaka Line: A nickname for the route formed by portions of Kagoshima Main Line, Chikuhō Main Line, and the whole part of Sasaguri Line.

Sakigake was launched January 7, 1985 from Kagoshima Space Center by M-3SII-1 launch vehicle.

At the same time as this campaign, the British Royal Navy engaged Satsuma samurai at the Bombardment of Kagoshima, one of the several engagements of the Japanese conflict of 1863 and 1864.

During 1864, these actions were successfully countered by armed retaliations by foreign powers, such as the British Bombardment of Kagoshima and the multinational Bombardment of Shimonoseki.

Despite the bombardment of Kagoshima, the Satsuma domain had become closer to the British and was pursuing the modernization of its army and navy with their support.

Satow was on board one of the British ships which sailed to Kagoshima in August 1863 to obtain the compensation demanded from the Satsuma clan's daimyo, Shimazu Hisamitsu, for the slaying of Charles Lennox Richardson.

Failure by the Satsuma clan to respond to British demands for compensation resulted in the August 1863 bombardment of Kagoshima, during the Late Tokugawa shogunate.

Deciding to put pressure on Satsuma, the British Navy commander seized three foreign-built steam merchant ships ( Sir George Grey, Contest, England, with an aggregate value of about $ 300, 000 /₤ 200, 000 sterling or GB £ 128, 000, 000 in 2011 pounds ) belonging to Satsuma which were at anchor in Kagoshima harbour, to use them as a bargaining tool.

In August 1863 he hoisted his flag in the wooden screw-frigate Euryalus and led a British squadron of seven warships to Kagoshima to coerce the Daimyo of Satsuma into paying the £ 100, 000 demanded by the British Government as reparation to the British victims of the Namamugi Incident.

*' The British Bombardment of Kagoshima, 1863: Admiral Sir L. Kuper and Lt.

During the unsettled years at the end of the Tokugawa bakufu and Meiji restoration, Willis treated the British nationals wounded in the Namamugi Incident and the Bombardment of Kagoshima.

In 1862, in the Namamugi Incident an Englishman was killed by retainers of Satsuma, leading to the bombardment of Kagoshima by the British Royal Navy the following year.