The class displaced 13300 tons, was 204 metres long, and was capable of 36 knots. She carried one aircraft and her main armament was 10 8-inch guns.
The Nachi was laid down on 26 November 1924, launched and named on 15 June 1927, and was commissioned into the Imperial Navy on 26 November 1928. Her service in the Second World War started in the Dutch East Indies, where she engaged the enemy off Makassar on 8 February 1942, played a key role in the sinking of HMS Exeter and her escort in the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 1942, and was engaged in another action off south Borneo on 1 March 1942. She then moved to the Aleutian Islands where she was engaged in the diversionary attack on the islands on 3 June 1942; she was back in the Aleutians when she was damaged on 26 March 1943 in the Battle of the Komandorski Islands, and was engaged in an action at Kiska in July 1943. By October 1944 she was in the Philippines where she was damaged in the Battle of Surigao Strait on 25 October 1944, and finally sunk by the USS Lexington on 5 November 1944.