The northeast end of the ward is slightly elevated, and is named Higashihirao (東平尾), with nearby Fukuoka Airport.

Around Hakata Station is downtown; Nakasu (中洲) is the main dining and entertainment district of the ward along the Naka River (那珂川, Nakagawa).

[4] Cisco has an Asia-Pacific sales office on the 12th floor of the Fukuoka Gion Daiichi Seimei Building.

From the early 2010s Hakata became the beneficiary of significant growth in cruise ship tourism; particularly with visitors from China.

[9] As of 2015, the largest passenger vessel making regular port calls at Hakata is Royal Caribbean International's MS Quantum of the Seas.

Partly as a result of growing international tourism, in 2015 Fukuoka reported the fastest rising tax revenues and population in Japan.

In the early Edo period, Kuroda Nagamasa, appointed the lord of Chikuzen Province, and most of his samurai vassals lived in Fukusaki, on the opposite shore of the Naka River from Hakata.

[11] In 1972, when Fukuoka City was granted designated status by government ordinance, a ward including the old Hakata area was given the name Hakata-ku.

However, the hasty repair seems to have been problematic as less than a month later the road began showing signs of imminent implosion.

[14] It is also the home of Mentai Rock, named after the popular mentaiko dish served in the region,[15] that spawned numerous J-pop idols during the early 1980s.