About Tokyo

Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to), is the capital city of Japan and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of over 14 million residents as of 2023. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and parts of six neighbouring prefectures, is the most-populous metropolitan area in the world, with 40.8 million residents as of 2023.
Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, Tokyo is part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and the seat of both 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 known as the Tokyo Islands. Despite most of the world recognising Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments which make up the metropolis. Notable 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 commercial, cultural, and business hub in the city.

Highlight Attractions

  • Asakusa
    Asakusa is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. It is known for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals, such as the Sanja Matsuri.
    The development of Asakusa as an entertainment district during the Edo period came about in part because of the neighboring district, Kuramae. Kuramae was a district of storehouses for rice, which was then used as payment for servants of the feudal government. The keepers (fudasashi) of these storage houses initially stored the rice for a small fee, but over the years began exchanging the rice for money or selling it to local shopkeepers at a margin. Through such trading, many fudasashi came to have a considerable amount of disposable income and as result theaters and geisha houses began to spring up in nearby Asakusa.


  • Ueno Park
    Ueno Park (上野公園, Ueno Kōen) is a spacious public park in the Ueno district of Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. The park was established in 1873 on lands formerly belonging to the temple of Kan'ei-ji. Amongst the country's first public parks, it was founded following the western example as part of the borrowing and assimilation of international practices that characterizes the early Meiji period. The home of a number of major museums, Ueno Park is also celebrated in spring for its cherry blossoms and hanami. In recent times the park and its attractions have drawn over ten million visitors a year, making it Japan's most popular city park.
     

    •  

  • Tokyo Tower
    The Tokyo Tower, officially called 日本電波塔, Nippon denpatō, "Japan Radio Tower") is a communications and observation tower in the Shiba-koen district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan, built in 1958. At 332.9 meters (1,092 ft), it was the tallest tower in Japan until the construction of Tokyo Skytree in 2012. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and international orange to comply with air safety regulations.
    The tower's main sources of income are tourism and antenna leasing. Over 150 million people have visited the tower. FootTown, a four-story building directly under the tower, houses museums, restaurants, and shops. Departing from there, guests can visit two observation decks. The two-story Main Deck (formerly known as the Main Observatory) is at 150 meters (490 ft), while the smaller Top Deck (formerly known as the "Special Observatory") reaches a height of 249.6 meters (819 ft). The names were changed following renovation of the top deck in 2018. The tower is repainted every five years, taking a year to complete the process.


  • Tokyo Skytree
    Tokyo Skytree is a broadcasting and observation tower in Sumida, Tokyo. It became the tallest tower in Japan in 2010[2] and reached its full height of 634 meters (2,080 ft) in March 2011, making it the tallest tower in the world, displacing the Canton Tower,[3][4] and the third tallest structure in the world after Merdeka 118 (678.9 m or 2,227 ft) and the Burj Khalifa (829.8 m or 2,722 ft).[5][a] It is the tallest freestanding tower in the OECD, the G20 and G7 countries.
     

     


  • Ginza
    Ginza is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi. It is a popular upscale shopping area of Tokyo, with numerous internationally renowned department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses located in its vicinity. It is considered to be one of the most expensive, elegant, and luxurious city districts in the world.
    Ginza was a part of the old Kyobashi ward of Tokyo City, which, together with Nihonbashi and Kanda, formed the core of Shitamachi, the original downtown center of Edo (Tokyo).
     
     
     


  • Akihabara
    Akihabara (Japanese: 秋葉原) is a neighborhood in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo, Japan, generally considered to be the area surrounding Akihabara Station. Administratively, the area Akihabara is found in the Sotokanda (外神田) and Kanda-Sakumachō districts of Chiyoda.
    The name Akihabara is a shortening of Akibagahara (秋葉ヶ原), which comes from Akiba (秋葉), named after a fire-controlling deity of a firefighting shrine built after the area was destroyed by a fire in 1869. Akihabara gained the nickname Akihabara Electric Town (秋葉原電気街, Akihabara Denki Gai) shortly after World War II for being a major shopping center for household electronic goods and the post-war black market.