Tokyo
Tōkyō (東京; lit. eastern capital) is the capital of Japan as well as the most populous conurbation in Japan, and one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world.
A little more than 12 million people live in Tokyo while hundreds of thousands of others commute everyday from surrounding areas to work and do business in Tokyo. Tokyo is the central place of politics, economy, culture and academics in Japan as well as the home of the Japanese emperor and the seat of the national government, as well as a major business and financial centre for all of East Asia.
It is unusual in that it has far fewer skyscrapers than other cities of its size, mostly due to earthquake construction codes: rather, it is mostly comprised of low-rise apartments of six to ten floors and densely-packed family homes. Tokyo is also home to the world's most complex mass transit system, and is world-famous for its crowded rush hours.
Tokyo literally means "eastern capital" in Japanese, a meaning in opposition to an old capital to the west, Kyoto, which was renamed "Saikyo", meaning "western capital", for a brief period of time. In Hepburn, Tokyo is spelled Tōkyō. In Nippon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki it is TÃÂôkyÃÂô. In JSL, it is Tookyoo. Using alternate Hepburn romanization methods yields the above, and Toukyou. Alternatively, it was previously spelled Tokio in English, and is still spelled Tokio in some other languages like Dutch, Esperanto, German, and Spanish.
Tokyo prefectural symbol |
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| Capital special ward | Shinjuku | ||||
| Region: | Kanto | ||||
| Island: | Honshu | ||||
Area
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Ranked 45th
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Population
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Ranked 1st
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| Districts: | 1 | ||||
| Municipalities: | 39 | ||||
| Governor: | Shintaro Ishihara | ||||
| : | JP-13 | ||||
| Symbols | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pref. Flower: | Yoshino cherry blossom | ||||
| Pref. Tree: | Ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba) | ||||
| Pref. Bird: | Black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus) | ||||
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| Table of contents |
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2 History 3 Geography 4 Economy 5 Demographics 6 Culture 7 Tourism 8 Prefectural symbols 9 Miscellaneous topics 10 External link and reference |
Tokyo has an administrative structure unique among the prefectures of Japan. It is officially designated as a "metropolis" (都 to). Although it generally resembles a prefecture, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government also offers partial city government functions to the 23 special wards comprising the heart of Tokyo, with a combined population of 8,134,688 and an area of 621.3 km². In addition to the special wards, Tokyo administers twenty-six suburban cities to the west, and a number of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Metropolitan Government's main offices (tochō) are located in the ward of Shinjuku.
According to the Population Census in 2000, Tokyo has a population of 12,064,101 and area of 2186.9 km2. Tokyo is also part of the Greater Tokyo Area, which consists of Tokyo itself and the surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba. The Greater Tokyo area is the largest metropolitan area in the world with a population of 33,418,366.
Tokyo was initially constructed in 1457; the city was known as Edo (江戸). The Tokugawa shogunate was established in 1603 with Edo as its seat of government (de facto capital). (The emperor's residence, and formal capital, remained in Kyoto--that city had been the actual capital of Japan until that time.) In September of 1868, when the shogunate came to an end, Emperor Meiji ordered Edo to be renamed "Tokyo," meaning "Eastern Capital." The new name was meant to emphasize Tokyo's status as the new capital of Japan, both temporally and spiritually.
Tokyo has been generally accepted as the sole capital of Japan since 1869, when the Emperor took up permanent residence there. However, the capital was never legally "transferred" to Tokyo, leading some to question whether Kyoto may still be the capital, or a co-capital. See: Capital of Japan debate
The Great Kanto earthquake struck Tokyo in 1923, killing approximately 70,000 people; a massive reconstruction plan was drawn up, but was too expensive to carry out except in part. Despite this, the city grew until the beginning of World War II. During the war, Tokyo was heavily bombed, much of the city was burned to the ground, and its population in 1945 was only half that of 1940.
After the end of the war, General Douglas MacArthur established his occupation headquarters in what is now the Dai-Ichi Seimei building overlooking the Imperial Palace. The American presence in Tokyo made it an important command and logistics center during the Korean War. Tokyo still hosts a number of U.S. military bases, including Yokota Air Base and Camp Zama.
In the post-war years, Japan experienced an economic miracle (in part stimulated by the Korean War) that led it from post-war deprivation to tremendous economic success. In the process, Japan entered and very often came to dominate a range of industries including steel, shipbuilding, automobiles, semi-conductors, and consumer electronics. Tokyo's postwar "coming out" is often said to be the 1964 Summer Olympics, which publicized the city on an international stage and brought global attention to the Japanese miracle.
Beginning in the 1970s, Japanese cities experienced a massive wave of expansion as laborers began migrating from rural areas, and Tokyo was one of the most dramatic examples. As it grew steadily into the economic bubble of the late 1980s, Tokyo became one of the most dynamic cities on Earth, with a tremendous range of social and economic activities, myriad restaurants and clubs, a major financial district, tremendous industrial strength, a wealth of shops, and world-class entertainment opportunities. The construction boom of the bubble years was one of the greatest in world history (as judged e.g. by the level of building expenditures in relation to the size of the economy), leading Tokyo to have an enormously more modern capital stock of buildings than similar metropoli such as London and New York City. Although the recession following the bursting of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s hurt the city, Tokyo remains the predominant economic center of East Asia, rivalled only by Hong Kong and Singapore.
On March 20, 1995, Tokyo became the focus of international media attention in the wake of the Aum Shinrikyo cult terrorist organisation attack with Sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system (in the tunnels beneath the political district of central Tokyo) in which 12 people were killed and thousands affected (see Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway).
A satellite photo of Tokyo, Japan taken on NASA's Landsat 7
Tokyo prefecture has 23 special wards in an area of about 621 square kilometers. As of September 1, 2002 the total population of the 23 wards was about 8.28 million, with a population density of 13,333 persons per square kilometer. Each ward is a local municipality with its own elected mayors and assemblies:
Administration
History
Geography
Tokyo prefecture is divided into mainland and island areas. The mainland is located to the northwest of Tokyo Bay, about 90 km east to west and 25 km north to south. It borders Chiba prefecture to the east, Yamanashi prefecture to the west, Kanagawa prefecture to the south, and Saitama prefecture to the north. The islands are made up of Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands, stretching 1,000 km into the Pacific Ocean.Wards
In addition to wards, the prefecture has cities like other prefectures.
List of Cities
Districts, Sub-prefecture, towns and villages
 A store in the Akihabara electronics area |
The following are towns and villages on islands.
- Hachijo sub-prefecture
- Aogashima
- Hachijo
- Miyake sub-prefecture
- Mikurajima
- Miyake
- Ogasawara sub-prefecture
- Oshima sub-prefecture
- Kozushima
- Niijima
- Oshima
- Toshima
Tokyo is the economic center of Japan: most of Japan's printing, broadcasting, telecommunications, banking, insurance, and financial services companies are based there, and many prominent international corporations are either headquartered in Tokyo or have their main Japanese offices there.
By age (2002):
Net population growth: +68,000 (2000 to 2001)
Religious landmarks in Tokyo:
Economy
Tokyo by nightCompanies headquartered in Tokyo
Demographics
Foreign resident population: 327,000 (2001)Culture
Major universities in Tokyo:
Baseball clubs in Tokyo:
 The Ginza area of Tokyo, Japan |
Some famous places for sight-seeing include:
Coat of arms: A sun, sending forth its radiance in six directions.
Tokyo is home to Yokota Air Base of the United States Air Force.
Airports:
Tokyo has one of the world's most extensive metro systems, which is run by the Tokyo Metro (formerly Teito Rapid Transit Authority, or Eidan) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation (Toei).
Major railway stations:
Tourism
Harajuku Station at night
Prefectural symbols
Miscellaneous topics
Transportation
New Tokyo International Airport has almost all of the international service coming into Tokyo, while Tokyo International has the lion's share of the intra-Japan flights coming into Tokyo. Chofu handles some flights to the islands south of Tokyo.
| North: Saitama | |||||
| West: Kofu | Tokyo, International Airport | East: Chiba, Narita, International Airport | |||
| South: Yokohama, Kawasaki |
External link and reference
Prefectures of Japan
Aichi | Akita | Aomori | Chiba | Ehime | Fukui | Fukuoka | Fukushima | Gifu | Gunma | Hiroshima | Hokkaido | Hyogo | Ibaraki | Ishikawa | Iwate | Kagawa | Kagoshima | Kanagawa | Kochi | Kumamoto | Kyoto | Mie | Miyagi | Miyazaki | Nagano | Nagasaki | Nara | Niigata | Oita | Okayama | Okinawa | Osaka | Saga | Saitama | Shiga | Shimane | Shizuoka | Tochigi | Tokushima | Tokyo | Tottori | Toyama | Wakayama | Yamagata | Yamaguchi | Yamanashi