Matsuyama, capital of Ehime Prefecture and Shikoku's largest city with 510,000 residents, combines historic hot spring culture with modern urban functions on island traditionally overshadowed by Honshu's major cities. Dogo Onsen, one of Japan's oldest hot springs with over 1,000-year history, serves as city's most famous attraction—the 1894 wooden bathhouse inspired Studio Ghibli's "Spirited Away" while continuing to serve bathing public and tourists seeking traditional onsen experience. The hot spring's longevity reflects Japanese spa culture valuing therapeutic bathing, social ritual, and aesthetic architecture creating spaces for physical and spiritual renewal. Matsuyama Castle, one of twelve original Edo-period castles surviving with authentic keep, overlooks city from hilltop providing historical landmark and tourism draw demonstrating feudal heritage predating modern development.

Contemporary Matsuyama navigates identity as Shikoku's primary city yet peripheral to Japan's Pacific Belt economic corridor concentrating population and industry on Honshu. The economy depends on citrus agriculture producing mikan (mandarin oranges), tourism visiting Dogo Onsen and castle, manufacturing, shipbuilding, and services supporting regional role. Challenges include Shikoku's geographic isolation from major markets, aging population typical of provincial Japanese cities, and economic dependence on domestic tourism vulnerable to demographic decline reducing travelers. Yet Matsuyama maintains appeal through hot spring culture, preserved castle, laid-back atmosphere contrasting with Tokyo's intensity, and literary associations with haiku poet Masaoka Shiki. The city represents provincial Japan—historic traditions, hot spring rituals, castle architecture, and agricultural landscapes maintaining cultural continuity despite modernization pressures transforming major urban areas into generic commercial centers.