Ōmura is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2024, the city had an estimated population of 99,337, and a population den…Ōmura is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2024, the city had an estimated population of 99,337, and a population density of 780 people per km². Ōmura is located in former Hizen Province. It developed in the Edo Period as the castle town of Ōmura Domain, ruled by the local Ōmura clan for over 900 years. It was the site of considerable foreign trade and missionary activity during the late Muromachi period, and the Catholic saint Marina de Omura hails from this city. Due to its proximity to the trading settlement at Dejima in Nagasaki, was one of the first areas of Japan to re-open to foreign contact after the end of the national seclusion policy after the Meiji restoration. In the opera Madama Butterfly, set in nearby Nagasaki, the place name Omara in the line "ed alla damigella Butterfly del quartiere d'Omara Nagasaki" probably refers to Ōmura. From 1868-1945, Ōmura was host to numerous military facilities as part of the Sasebo Naval District, most notably that of a major air base for the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. The former naval base was the location of the squalid Ōmura Migrant Detention Center, where mainly Korean refugees—termed "stowaways" —were held until deportation, frequently for several years. Since August 1996 the nearby Ōmura Immigration Reception Center in a modern building serves the same function.
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