Tokyo, Japan City Tour
Tokyo is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan, has served as the Japanese capital since 1869. As of 2014 the Greater Tokyo Area ranked as the most populous metropolitan area in the world. The urban area houses the seat of the Emperor of Japan, of the Japanese government and of the National Diet. Tokyo forms part of the Kanto region on the southeastern side of Japan's main island, Honshu, and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Tokyo was formerly named Edo when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city as his headquarters in 1603. It became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from Kyoto in 1868; at that time Edo was renamed Tokyo. Tokyo Metropolis formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo.
Tokyo’s round-the-clock kinetic mobility, innovation and efficiency mesmerize global visitors. But it’s only when the motivation for this legendary engineering and grand design is considered that another characteristic emerges: resilience in the face of nuclear radiation, earthquakes, tsunamis and, in the past seven years, all three simultaneously.
Tokyo bounces back because, well, it always has. For centuries. Before it became “Tokyo” 150 years ago, it was Edo a feudal center that by the early 1800s was the largest city on the planet.
That degree of density over so many centuries means few places have refined the urban experience better than Tokyo.
The two centuries of Edo’s strict customs and regulations to promote stability and dominate regionally still anchor the quiet, efficient velocity of this city of almost 9.5 million. In fact, first-time visitors are often confused by the passivity, deference and general politeness of the citizenry.
Tokyo’s safety and empathy were recently poetically described by architect Kuma while discussing the catastrophic 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. “What is important is the strength of the communities, not the hardware,” he said. “So architects should build a community, rather than just a house.”
Today, there’s a lot of building on the onramp to the 2020 Summer Games.
There’s also an unprecedented commitment to sustainable development-and the goal to reduce citywide greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 2000 levels. Citizen-focused infrastructure like two much-needed subway stations on the Yamanote and Kibiya lines will add even more efficiency to moving around Tokyo’s urban clusters.
Community and livability are also sustained over great meals, and Tokyo is unrivalled in any culinary metric.
Tokyo’s urban perfection is drawing tourists in record numbers, with 24 million arriving in 2016 and the ever-ambitious city leaders looking to almost double that to 40 million by 2020, the year of the Games.
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