Tsukiji Outer Market

Tsukiji, literally 'built land', is ground reclaimed from Tokyo Bay after the great Meireki fire of 1657. In 1935 the city's central wholesale market opened here, replacing the fish market at Nihonbashi that had been destroyed in the 1923 earthquake. For more than eighty years Tsukiji was the largest fish market in the world, famous for its pre-dawn tuna auctions.

Around the fenced wholesale area — the jōnai, or inner market — a separate district of shops developed to serve buyers, chefs and restaurant owners: the jōgai, or outer market. Its narrow lanes hold fishmongers, greengrocers, sellers of kombu, katsuobushi and pickles, makers of kitchen knives and tableware, and counters serving sushi, seafood bowls and ramen from early morning.

In October 2018 the wholesale market moved to a new site at Toyosu in Koto ward, and the inner market was demolished. The outer market stayed. It still sells to professionals, though visitors now make up much of its trade, and it remains the most accessible place in central Tokyo to see the foods and tools of Japanese cooking at close quarters.

Edo's fish market grew up at Nihonbashi in the early seventeenth century. After the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 destroyed it, a temporary market was set up and the Tokyo Central Wholesale Market opened at Tsukiji in 1935, handling fish, fruit and vegetables.

As the market aged, plans to relocate it were debated for decades. The move to Toyosu took place in 2018. To keep a market function on site, the outer market opened the Tsukiji Uogashi building that year, where wholesale traders sell to both professionals and the public.

Tsukiji built the reputation of Tokyo as a city of fish. Generations of chefs learned their trade buying here, and the market's name still stands for freshness and expertise in Japanese food culture. The outer market's shops preserve the specialist trades behind washoku: dashi ingredients such as kombu and katsuobushi, pickles, tea, knives, bamboo utensils and ceramics.

The shrine of Namiyoke Inari is the spiritual centre of the district. Its Tsukiji Lion Festival in June carries giant lion heads through the streets, and its memorial stones to seafood, eggs and sushi express the gratitude of the traders to the foods they live from.