Lying at the westerly tip of Honshu, Suo has good transport and horse trading resources. Under the Ouchi family, the capital Yamaguchi has become known as the "Kyoto of the West" due to its great cultural achievements, making it the unofficial second city of Japan. It was here, among the educated population, that Francis Xavier, the famed Jesuit missionary, found patronage and support for his attempts to convert the Japanese to Catholicism.