Hanamachi
 Map of Kyoto kagai
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Hanamachi (花街 hanamachi?) is a Japanese geisha district. The word's literal meaning is "flower town". Such districts contain various okiya (geisha houses) and ochaya (teahouses).
Historically, Hanamachi typically contained a number of okiya and ochaya, along with a kaburenjō. The kaburenjō was a meeting place for geisha, usually with a theatre, rooms where geisha classes can be held, and the kenban offices, which dealt with geisha's pay, regulation and similar matters. Gion, a district in Kyoto, also has a vocational school, called Nyokoba. Many of the teachers there are designated as Living National Treasures. The onsen geisha communities of onsen (hot spring resort) towns are not considered hanamachi, and not listed below.
Hanamachi were preceded by and should not be confused with traditional courtesan/prostitution districts known as yūkaku (、遊郭?, pleasure quarter, red-light district). These were three districts, established in the early 1600s in Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo (now Tokyo), respectively: Shimabara for Kyōto (1640), Shinmachi for Ōsaka (1624–1644) and Yoshiwara for Edo (1617). The workers in these districts were known as yūjo (?), of which the highest ranked were oiran, and rather than the ochaya and okiya of geisha, these featured ageya as entertainment venues. Geisha developed about a century later, in the mid-1700s, often in courtesan districts, and thus these districts developed into hanamachi. All three districts are now defunct, both as courtesan districts and geisha districts, though some tourist-oriented establishments are preserved in Shimabara, Kyoto, and some conventional sex work establishments continue to exist in Yoshiwara, Tokyo.
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