Sendai is divided into five districts: Aoba-ku, Izumi-ku, Miyagino-ku, Taihaku-ku and Wakabayashi-ku.As everyone here will tell you, "it's not too big and not too small, it's very convenient and it's close to both the sea and the mountains."Sendai is a comfortable and pleasant city — it's a nice place to live. It's very green — in fact they call it ??? (''Mori no Miyako'', "Forest City"). The main avenues around the city are wide and tree-lined, giving the city an almost European feel. The main shopping street — confusingly known by two different names, Chuo-dori (????) and Clis Road — is pedestrianised and covered, so it feels like a mall. Several large universities are located in Sendai, attracting young adults from throughout the Tohoku area.Although there is evidence of settlements in the Sendai region dating back over 20,000 years, it was not until the local feudal ruler, Date Masamune, moved his capital here in 1600 that the city began to take on any signifance. He established a fine castle on Aobayama (green leaf mountain) and the town that was built below the castle near the Hirose River was built according to the traditional street grid pattern. The original name of the area was also Sendai, but the Chinese characters for this name were changed. Originally they referred to a temple on Aobayama that housed a thousand Buddha statues. Later, Date Matsume changed the Chinese characters to mean 'hermit on a platform,' which referred to a mythical palace in the mountains in China. It is this latter name that is currently used by the present-day city. http://wikitravel.org/en/Sendai