Tokyo

Tokyo is not a city in the ordinary Japanese sense but a metropolis (to), a prefecture-level government that since 1943 has also taken on many municipal tasks. Its territory falls into three parts. The 23 special wards (tokubetsu-ku) in the east form the former City of Tokyo, each with its own elected mayor and assembly; this is what most people mean by 'Tokyo'. West of them, the Tama area comprises 26 cities – among them Hachioji, Tachikawa and Machida – plus three towns and a village, rising from suburbs to the forested Okutama mountains. Far to the south, the Izu Islands and the Ogasawara Islands, stretching more than 1,000 km into the Pacific, are governed as island towns and villages.

As the seat of the emperor, the National Diet, the government ministries and the Supreme Court, and as home to the headquarters of most of Japan's major companies, Tokyo is the political, economic and cultural centre of the country. It is also one of the world's great cities of food, design, fashion, performing arts and popular culture.

Historically, Tokyo is the former Edo, the shogun's capital from 1603, renamed 'Eastern Capital' in 1868 when the emperor moved there. Destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and by air raids in 1945, it has been rebuilt twice in a century, which explains the coexistence of old shrines and alleyways with some of the world's most intensive modern urban development.

Tokyo (東京) means 'eastern capital', a name given to Edo in 1868 to mark its new role alongside Kyoto, the western capital. Edo itself, 'estuary gate', was the name of a riverside settlement and castle on Tokyo Bay. Tokyo Prefecture (Tokyo-fu) was created in 1868; the City of Tokyo followed in 1889. The Izu Islands were transferred from Shizuoka in 1878, the Ogasawara Islands placed under Tokyo in 1880, and the Tama area moved from Kanagawa in 1893 to secure the capital's water supply from the Tama River. In 1943 prefecture and city were merged into today's Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo-to).

The wards occupy the south-western edge of the Kanto Plain on Tokyo Bay. The low-lying east, the shitamachi, lies on the deltas of the Sumida, Ara and Edo rivers, partly below sea level; the hilly west, the yamanote, sits on the Musashino terrace, cut by small valleys. Much of the bay shore, including Odaiba and Toyosu, is reclaimed land. The Tama area rises westward through the Tama hills and Tama River valley to the Okutama mountains, where Kumotori-yama (2,017 m), Tokyo's highest peak, stands on the Saitama–Yamanashi border within Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park. The Izu Islands are a chain of volcanoes, including Izu Oshima and Miyakejima, and the Ogasawara Islands, about 1,000 km south, are oceanic islands never joined to a continent, inscribed as a natural World Heritage site in 2011.

The wards have a humid subtropical climate: hot, humid summers with a rainy season in June and July and typhoons in late summer, and mild, dry, sunny winters with occasional snow. The urban heat island makes nights warmer than in the surrounding countryside. Okutama is noticeably cooler, and the Ogasawara Islands have a subtropical oceanic climate with warm winters.

In 1457 the warrior Ota Dokan built a castle at Edo, a fishing village on Tokyo Bay. Tokugawa Ieyasu made it his base in 1590 and, after becoming shogun in 1603, turned it into the seat of government. Rivers were diverted, hills levelled and bays filled; the alternate-attendance system brought daimyo households to the city, and by the eighteenth century Edo was one of the largest cities in the world, with a vibrant commoner culture of kabuki, ukiyo-e, sumo and food stalls.

In 1868 the city was renamed Tokyo and the emperor moved into Edo Castle, which became the Imperial Palace. Railways, universities, ministries and brick districts such as Ginza followed. The Great Kanto Earthquake and fires of 1923 killed over 100,000 people, and the air raid of 10 March 1945 destroyed much of the east of the city. Post-war recovery culminated in the 1964 Olympic Games; the metropolitan government moved to Shinjuku in 1991, and Tokyo hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games again in 2021.

Tokyo's traditional culture is that of Edo: kabuki at the Kabukiza, rakugo in the yose theatres, sumo at Ryogoku, and the festivals of the shitamachi neighbourhoods with their portable shrines. The self-image of the Edokko – the true-born son of Edo, quick-tempered, generous and proud – still colours the old east of the city. At the same time Tokyo leads Japan in contemporary art, architecture, fashion, music, anime and design.

Tokyo cooking grew out of Edo's fast food – sushi, tempura, soba and eel sold from stalls to busy townspeople – and today the city has more restaurants than almost any other in the world, covering every regional Japanese and international cuisine.

Tokyo generates a larger share of Japan's economic output than any other prefecture. It is the country's financial centre, with the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Bank of Japan, and hosts the head offices of most large Japanese companies and many foreign ones. Services, information and communications, wholesale trade, publishing, media and advertising dominate, while small high-precision manufacturers in wards such as Ota and cities of the Tama area supply industry nationwide. Tourism, conventions and the Toyosu wholesale market add to a diversified economy.