Tokyo

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Location of Tokyo in Japan

Tokyo is the de facto capital and biggest city of Japan, literally means "eastern capital", Tokyo is where most of the monster battles occur.Tokyo (東京, Tōkyō?), formally Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to?), is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū, Tokyo is unique among the prefectures, providing certain municipal services characteristic of a city, as defined by Japanese law.[1]

Because it is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family, Tokyo is the de facto capital of Japan.[2] The name Tokyo literally means eastern capital.

The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, although each administratively a city in its own right, constitute the area informally considered as the "city of Tokyo" and are collectively one of the largest cities in the world with a total population of over 8 million people.[3] The total population of the prefecture exceeds 12 million.

The Greater Tokyo Area,[4] centered on Tokyo but also including Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama, is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with a population of over 35 million people.[5] It has been the world's most populous urban area since between 1965 and 1970, and despite Japan's overall declining population, is still growing.[citation needed]

Tokyo has the largest metropolitan gross domestic product in the world for a city.[citation needed]

Tokyo is a major global city and megacity. The name "Tokyo" refers variously to Tokyo Metropolis (the prefecture) as a whole, or only to the main urban mass under its jurisdiction (thus excluding west Tama and Izu and Ogasawara Islands), or even the whole of Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and parts of Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, and Yamanashi prefectures, depending on context.

Name

Tokyo was originally known as Edo, meaning estuary.[6] Its name was changed to Tokyo (Tōkyō: tō (east) + kyō (capital)) when it became the de facto imperial capital in 1868.[6] During the early Meiji period, the city was also called "Tōkei", an alternative pronunciation for the same Chinese characters representing "Tokyo". Some surviving official English documents use the spelling "Tokei".[7] This pronunciation is now obsolete.

History

Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo. In 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle. In 1590, Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo his base and when he became shogun in 1603, the town became the center of his nationwide military government. During the subsequent Edo period, Edo grew into one of the largest cities in the world with a population topping one million by the 18th century.[8] It became the de facto capital of Japan[9] even while the emperor lived in Kyoto, the imperial capital.

After about 263 years, the shogunate was overthrown under the banner of restoring imperial rule. In 1869, the 17-year-old Emperor Meiji moved to Edo. Tokyo was already the nation's political and cultural center,[10] and the emperor's residence made it a de facto imperial capital as well with the former Edo Castle becoming the Imperial Palace. The city of Tokyo was established, and continued to be the capital until it was abolished as a municipality in 1943 and merged with the "Metropolitan Prefecture" of Tokyo.

Central Tokyo, like Osaka, has been designed since about the turn of the century (1900) to be centered around major train stations in a high-density fashion[citation needed], so suburban railways were built relatively cheaply at street level and with their own right-of-way. This differs from cities in the United States, such as Los Angeles, that are low-density and automobile-centric. Though expressways have been built in Tokyo, the basic design has not changed.

Skyscrapers in Shinjuku Shiodome buildings as seen from Hamarikyu Gardens, Tokyo bayTokyo went on to suffer two major catastrophes in the 20th century, but it recovered from both. One was the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, and the other was World War II. The firebombings in 1945, with 75,000 to 200,000 killed and half of the city destroyed, were almost as devastating as the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.[11] After the war, Tokyo was completely rebuilt, and showcased to the world during the 1964 Summer Olympics. The 1970s brought new high-rise developments such as Sunshine 60, a new and controversial airport at Narita, some distance outside city limits, and a population increase to about 11 million (in the metropolitan area). Tokyo's subway and commuter rail network became one of the busiest in the world[12] as more and more people moved to the area. In the 1980s, real estate prices skyrocketed during an economic bubble. The bubble burst in the early 1990s and many companies, banks, and individuals were caught with real estate shrinking in value. A major recession followed, making the 1990s Japan's "lost decade"[13] from which it is slowly recovering.

Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower as seen from Odaiba at night Shin-Marunouchi Building in MarunouchiTokyo still sees new urban developments on large lots of less profitable land. Recent projects include Ebisu Garden Place, Tennozu Isle, Shiodome, Roppongi Hills, Shinagawa (now also a Shinkansen station), and the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station. Buildings of significance are demolished for more up-to-date shopping facilities such as Omotesando Hills. Land reclamation projects in Tokyo have also been going on for centuries. The most prominent is the Odaiba area, now a major shopping and entertainment center.

Various plans have been proposed[14] for transferring national government functions from Tokyo to secondary capitals in other regions of Japan, in order to slow down rapid development in Tokyo and revitalize economically lagging areas of the country. These plans have been controversial[15] within Japan and have yet to be realized.

Demographics

Over eight million people live within Tokyo's 23 wards. During the daytime, the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and students commute from adjacent areas.[31] This effect is even more pronounced in the three central wards of Chiyoda, Chūō, and Minato, whose collective population is less than 300,000 at night, but over two million during the day. The entire prefecture has 12,790,000 residents in October 2007 (8,657,000 in 23 wards), with an increase of over 3 million in the day. Tokyo is at its highest population ever, while that of the 23 wards peak official count was 8,893,094 in the 1965 Census, with the count dipping below 8 million in the 1995 Census. People continue to move back into the core city as land prices have fallen dramatically.

As of 2005, the five most common foreign nationalities found in Tokyo are Chinese (123,661), Korean (106,697), Filipino (31,077), American (18,848) and British (7,696).[32]

The 1889 Census recorded 1,389,600 people in Tokyo City, Japan's largest city at the time

Special wards of Tokyo

The special wards of Tokyo (東京23区) are 23 municipalities that together make up the core and the most populous part of Tokyo.

Adachi(足立区)

Arakawa(荒川区)

Bunkyō(文京区)

Chiyoda(千代田区)

Chūō(中央区)

Edogawa(江戸川区)

Itabashi(板橋区)

Katsushika(葛飾区)

Kita(北区)

Kōtō(江東区)

Meguro(目黒区)

Minato(港区)

Nakano(中野区)

Nerima(練馬区)

Ōta(大田区)

Setagaya(世田谷区)

Suginami(杉並区)

Sumida(墨田区)

Toshima(豊島区)

Taitō(台東区)

Western Tokyo

Alos called Tama Area (多摩地域)

Akiruno(あきる野市)

Akishima(昭島市)

Chōfu(調布市)

Fuchū(府中市)

Fussa(福生市)

Hachiōji(八王子市)

Hamura (羽村市)

Higashikurume (東久留米市)

Higashimurayama (東村山市)

Higashiyamato (東大和市)

Hino (日野市)

Inagi (稲城市)

Kiyose (清瀬市)

Kodaira (小平市)

Koganei (小金井市)

Kokubunji (国分寺市)

Komae (狛江市)

Kunitachi (国立市)

Machida (町田市)

Mitaka (三鷹市)

Musashimurayama (武蔵村山市)

Musashino (武蔵野市)

Nishitōkyō (西東京市)

Ōme (青梅市)

Tachikawa (立川市)

Tama (多摩市)

Hinode (日の出町)

Mizuho (瑞穂町)

Okutama ( 奥多摩町)

Hinohara (檜原村)

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