Otsu (大津市 O:tsu-shi) is the central city of Japan, the administrative center of Shiga Prefecture. It adjoins directly to Kyoto and is connected with it by a single metro system.
The area of ​​the city is 464.10 km², the population is 341,763 people (July 1, 2014), the population density is 736.40 people / km².
Otsu received city status on October 1, 1898.

The city is located on the southern shore of the largest lake in Japan – Lake Biwa, around which Shiga Prefecture is located.

Religion
The city is famous for the Mii-dera temple of the Buddhist school of Tendai.
In the city of Sakamoto, as part of Otsu, there is the famous Shinto shrine Hiyoshi-taisha.
Above the city is Mount Hiei with the temple of Enryaku-ji of the Buddhist school of Tendai.

Fame abroad
The city is known as the place where, in 1891, policeman Tsuda Sanzo made an attempt on the life of Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich (the so-called Otsu incident).