View of Shinjuku skyscrapers and Mount Fuji as seen from the Bunkyo Civic Center in Tokyo The Flag of the Tokyo Metropolis Tokyo Tokyo Metropolis is the capital and most populous city of Japan . With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is one of the most populous urban areas in the world . The Greater Tokyo Area , which includes Tokyo and parts of six neighboring prefectures , is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with 41 million residents as of 2024[ update]
Lying at the head of Tokyo Bay , Tokyo is part of the Kantō region , on the central coast of Honshu , Japan's largest island. It is Japan's economic center and the seat of the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan . The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers Tokyo's central 23 special wards , which formerly made up Tokyo City ; various commuter towns and suburbs in its western area ; and two outlying island chains, the Tokyo Islands . Although most of the world recognizes Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to that of a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments that make up the metropolis. Special wards in Tokyo include Chiyoda , the site of the National Diet Building and the Tokyo Imperial Palace ; Shinjuku , the city's administrative center; and Shibuya , a hub of commerce and business.
Tokyo, originally known as Edo , rose to political prominence in 1603 when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate , and by the mid-18th century, Edo had evolved from a small fishing village into one of the largest cities in the world, with a population surpassing one million. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo, and the city was renamed Tokyo (lit. ' Eastern Capital ' ). Tokyo was greatly damaged by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and by allied bombing raids during World War II . Beginning in the late 1940s, Tokyo underwent rapid reconstruction and expansion, which fueled the Japanese economic miracle , in which Japan's economy became the second-largest in the world at the time , behind that of the United States . As of 2025[ update] Fortune Global 500Full article...
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (アンダーグラウンド Andāguraundo – 1998) is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway . The book is made up of a series of interviews with individuals who were affected by the attacks, and the English translation also includes interviews with members of Aum, the religious cult responsible for the attacks. Murakami hoped that through these interviews, he could capture a side of the attacks which the sensationalist Japanese media had ignored—the way it had affected average citizens. The interviews were conducted over nearly a year, starting in January 1996 and ending in December of that same year.
The interviews highlight many intriguing aspects of the Japanese psyche. Work was a high, if not central, priority for most of the interviewees. Isolation, individualism, and lack of communication were also strong themes which were common throughout many accounts of the attacks. Many of the interviewees expressed disillusionment with the materialism in Japanese society and the sensationalistic media, as well as the inefficiency of the emergency response system in dealing with the attack. (Full article...
The new Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building was completed in 1991 in Shinjuku
You are invited to participate in the Tokyo task force , a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the Tokyo metropolis, including the Special wards of Tokyo , West Tokyo , and the islands.
The following are images from various Tokyo-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1 The Metropolitan Police Department burning at
Marunouchi , near
Hibiya Park during the 1923 earthquake (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 2 A German map of Tokyo from 1896 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 3 Police officers and Japan Defense Force troops responding to the scene of the
1995 subway sarin attack (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 5 A section of the
Tamagawa Josui in an 1856 painting by
Hiroshige (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 6 Otoya Yamaguchi preparing to stab
Inejiro Asanuma a second time (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 7 A painting of the new
Tokyo Imperial Palace (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 9 A scene of the
2020 Summer Olympics' opening ceremony , where 1,824 drones formed the Games' logo. (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 11 A Tokyo taxi driver indicating a fare of 50 Sen by holding up five fingers, in 1932 (from
Transport in Greater Tokyo )
Image 12 Tokyo's
23 special wards , one part of the Tokyo Metropolis prefecture (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 13 Ōta Dokan , who built the start to
Edo Castle (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 14 An 1814 handscroll depicting the
Great Fire of Meireki (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 16 Tokyo streets at night (from
Transport in Greater Tokyo )
Image 18 A
Torii Kiyomasu painting of
kabuki actor
Ichikawa Danjuro I playing
Soga Tokimune . This was likely one of the most popular ukiyo-e
actor prints (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 19 A view of the
IMTFE in session (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 20 This marker in Nihonbashi is the place from which distances along highways are reckoned. (from
Transport in Greater Tokyo )
Image 22 Tokyo Imperial University 's law building before 1902 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 24 Commodore Matthew C. Perry 's fleet during his second visit to Tokyo in 1854 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 25 Rokumeikan , a club mixing Japanese and European styles (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 26 Toyota Crown Comfort Nihon Kotsu Taxi (from
Transport in Greater Tokyo )
Image 27 Tokyo from the air after the
firebombing of the city , 1945 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 28 Tokugawa Ieyasu, who made Edo the capital of Japan (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 29 Japanese children in ruins, Tokyo, 1945 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 30 A leaflet dropped by the U.S. over Tokyo during the bombings, urging civilians to leave the city (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 32 Map of operators in Greater Tokyo Area (from
Transport in Greater Tokyo )
Image 33 Nihonbashi Bridge , in a c. 1838–1842 painting by Hiroshige (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 34 Taira no Masakado , who challenged the Emperor by becoming the effective ruler of
Kanto (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 35 A
kawaraban (news broadsheet) depicting the damage of the
1855 earthquake (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 36 The
Shintomi-za theater, as painted by
Utagawa Hiroshige III in 1881 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 38 An 1809 etched print of the
Senso-ji temple, before it was firebombed during
World War II and rebuilt (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 39 Tokyo Haneda Airport (from
Transport in Greater Tokyo )
Image 41 Emperor Meiji , moving from
Kyoto to Tokyo after the
fall of Edo in 1868 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 42 An 1869 picture scroll of the 1772
Great Meiwa Fire (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 43 This 1858 map shows the
yamanote western district (at top) and the
shitamachi eastern district (at bottom).
Nihonbashi is at center (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 44 Picture of the Upper Class, a c. 1794–1795 painting by Utamaro. The woman on the left is lower in class than the woman on the right, who wears more colorful clothes (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 45 The
Nikkei 225 stock market index from 1970 to 2024 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 46 A scene from the
Tokugawa Seiseiroku , showing an aspect of the
sankin-kōtai system: the festive attendance day of daimyo at Edo Castle (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 47 Yukio Mishima giving a speech during his 1970 coup attempt at the
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force building (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 49 Hokusai's painting of the
47 ronin storming
Kira Yoshinaka 's mansion (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 50 The five-story pagoda of
Kan'ei-ji , which was constructed during the reign of
Tokugawa Hidetada and required the building of the
Kimon (Devil's Gate) (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 51 A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest
court ranks , higher than most court nobles. (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 52 Folding screen view of Edo in the 17th century, showing Edo Castle on the upper right corner (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 53 Tokyo governor
Shintaro Ishihara in 2003 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 56 The
Ginza Line , Asia's oldest subway line, first opened in 1927 (from
Transport in Greater Tokyo )
Image 58 A jar from the
Yayoi period (300 BC to 300 AD) found in Kugahara,
Ōta (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 59 Funeral procession for Hirohito (by then renamed
Showa ) on 24 February 1989 (from
History of Tokyo )
Image 60 The
Kabukicho district of
Shinjuku in 1982, before police cracked down on its illegal activities (from
History of Tokyo )
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