Kurume ramen: what it is, where it is from and what a bowl costs

From

Kurume, Fukuoka

Soup

rich, cloudy pork-bone (tonkotsu)

Also

said to be the origin of cloudy pork-bone ramen

Checked

18 October 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

• MAFF says ramen with pork-bone soup simmered until cloudy white is said to have started with Kurume ramen.
• Kurume ramen is described as rich, with soup that is topped up and kept simmering.
• JNTO says tonkotsu ramen probably originated in Kurume in the 1930s or 40s.
• JNTO places Kurume midway between Fukuoka and Kumamoto in Kyushu.

The government's retail price survey records the price of a bowl of chuka soba (ramen) at ordinary shops every month in 81 cities. In August 2026 it was 803 yen in Fukuoka City (capital of Fukuoka), 23 of 81 from the highest. Tokyo's 23 wards were 620 yen, 73 of 81, so ramen in Tokyo is not more expensive than in most cities. This is an average of the shops in the survey, not the price at a famous shop.

The survey does not cover Kurume, so this is the price in Fukuoka's capital, Fukuoka City.

Spending on eating out at ramen shops

7,604 yen a year per household in Fukuoka City (2023–2025 average; 38 of 52 cities; Japan 8,752 yen)

Ramen shops

742 in Fukuoka in 2016, 14.5 per 100,000 people (26 of 47; Japan 14.3)

Spending is from the household survey of two-or-more-person households in 52 large cities, so it is the city's number, not the prefecture's. Ramen shops are the 2016 Economic Census count of businesses classified as ramen shops; some ramen shops are counted with Chinese restaurants, so the real number is higher. Per-person numbers divide by the 2016 population (our calculation).