was a city

Cities of Japan

||A is a local administrative unit in Japan. Cities are ranked on the same level as and , with the difference that they are not a component of...

 in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 until it was absorbed into the newly created city of Kitakyushu in 1963. Its former area is as of 2007 part of two distinct wards

Wards of Japan

A is a subdivision of one of the cities of Japan that is large enough to have been designated by government ordinance. Wards are used to subdivide each city designated by government ordinance...

: Yahata Higashi-ku

Yahata Higashi-ku, Kitakyushu

is a ward of Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka, Japan. It is the second smallest ward in Kitakyūshū after Tobata ward at only 36.36 square kilometres. Residents have a very high average age, one of the highest in Japan. The population was 77,077 at the end of September 2003....

 and Yahata Nishi-ku

Yahata Nishi-ku, Kitakyushu

is a ward of Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka, Japan. It covers 83.04 square kilometres, and had a population of 260,318 at January 1, 2005. The ward contains JR Kurosaki Station, and JR Orio Station on the Kagoshima Main Line, with several schools and universities nearby...

.

The city was fire-bombed

Bombing of Yawata

The Japanese city of Yawata was subjected to three major air raids during World War II. The first raid took place on the night of 15/16 June 1944. This was the first attack on the Japanese home islands by land-based United States Army Air Forces bombers. The city was next attacked during the day...

 in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in early August 1945, and the resulting smoke obscured the nearby town of Kokura; causing the planes en route to drop the atomic weapon "Fat Man

Fat Man

"Fat Man" is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States on August 9, 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare to date , and its detonation caused the third man-made nuclear explosion. The name also refers more...

" to head to their secondary target, Nagasaki

Nagasaki

is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...

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