 Some of the earliest written documents mentioning the region include the "Nihon Shoki", which describes the founding of the Ikuta Shrine by Empress Jingū in AD 201.During the Nara and Heian periods, the port was known by the name and was one of the ports from which imperial embassies to China were dispatched.The city was briefly the capital of Japan in 1180, when Taira no Kiyomori moved his grandson Emperor Antoku to Fukuhara in present-day Hyōgo-ku.