Zenchū Nakahara (仲原 善忠, Nakahara Zenchū, 15 July 1890 – 25 November 1964) was a Japanese scholar, known particularly for his work on the Omoro sōshi, a written collection of songs and poems which constitutes an oral history of Okinawa and the Ryūkyū Kingdom.
Nakahara was born in Nakazato magiri, on Kumejima.
[1] He first began research into Okinawan history around the age of 50.
After the end of World War II, he researched the native Ryukyuan religion, and produced a paper which drew great praise from Yanagita Kunio, widely regarded today as the father of Japanese ethnology.
He would go on to produce a number of papers on topics relating to Okinawan history, omoro, and ethnology, as well as a middle school textbook entitled History of Ryukyu (琉球の歴史, ryūkyū no rekishi).