Karasuma is Kyoto's primary business and civic district, running along Karasuma-dori, the major north-south boulevard that serves as the commercial spine of the city between Kyoto Station in the south and the Imperial Palace in the north. The name refers to the street itself — Karasuma (烏丸) means "crow circle" — which has functioned as the main commercial artery of Kyoto since the Heian period when the city was laid out on a Chinese-inspired grid plan.
The district has the composed, institutional character appropriate to the street that connects Kyoto's great commercial station to its imperial history. The area around Shijo-Karasuma intersection is the financial and corporate heart of the city, lined with bank headquarters, major retailers, and business hotels that serve the commercial life of what remains one of Japan's most economically significant cities despite its historical identity.
Karasuma has less of the tourist overlay of adjacent districts like Kawaramachi and Gion and more of the working-city character of a genuine business district. For visitors this makes it a useful and practical base with good transport connections and reliable restaurant options without the premium pricing of the more tourist-facing areas.
Karasuma-dori is a wide, formally organized boulevard that moves at a business pace. The buildings along its length are institutional in scale and character, and the general atmosphere is purposeful and efficient in the way that commercial centers of historically important cities tend to be.
The streets running east and west of the main boulevard, particularly toward Nishiki Market and the traditional townhouse districts of Nakagyo Ward, have a more intimate and historically layered quality that becomes apparent almost immediately when you step off the main street.
The area around the Oike-dori intersection with Karasuma is one of the more architecturally impressive parts of modern Kyoto, with several well-designed contemporary buildings around a wide, tree-lined boulevard that gives the civic center of the city a sense of scale and ambition appropriate to its importance.
Shijo Station on the Hankyu Kyoto Line and Karasuma Station on the Osaka Metro (Kyoto portion) serve the central Shijo-Karasuma intersection. Karasuma-Oike Station on the Kyoto Municipal Subway Karasuma Line and Tozai Line serves the civic center area.