Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan’s capital and its largest city, had a population of over 14 million within the city limits as of 2023. The broader Greater Tokyo Area—encompassing Tokyo and parts of six neighboring prefectures—ranks as the world’s third-most populous metropolitan area, with 33 million residents. Situated at the head of Tokyo Bay, it lies in the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan’s biggest island. The city serves as Japan’s economic hub and hosts both the national government and the Emperor.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government oversees 23 special wards (which once formed Tokyo City), plus western commuter towns and suburbs, along with two outlying island chains known as the Tokyo Islands. Though commonly viewed as a city, Tokyo has operated since 1943 with a structure closer to a prefecture, led by a Governor and Assembly that supersede the smaller municipal governments within it. Key special wards include Chiyoda, home to the National Diet Building and the Tokyo Imperial Palace; Shinjuku, the administrative center; and Shibuya, a commercial and business district.

Originally called Edo, Tokyo gained political importance in 1603 when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. By the mid-18th century, Edo had grown from a small fishing village into one of the world’s largest cities, with over a million residents. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the imperial capital moved from Kyoto to Edo, and the city was renamed Tokyo. It suffered severe damage from the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and from Allied bombing during World War II. Starting in the late 1940s, Tokyo underwent rapid rebuilding and expansion, fueling Japan’s economic miracle, which made the country’s economy the second-largest globally at the time, behind the United States. Today, Tokyo is home to 26 of the world’s 500 largest companies on the Fortune Global 500 list.

Tokyo was the first Asian city to host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, doing so in 1964 and again in 2021. It also hosted three G7 summits: in 1979, 1986, and 1993. The city is a global center for research and development and an academic hub, with major universities including the University of Tokyo, Japan’s top-ranked institution. Tokyo Station serves as the central hub for the Shinkansen high-speed rail network, while Shinjuku Station is the world’s busiest train station. Tokyo Skytree stands as the world’s tallest tower. The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, which opened in 1927, is Asia’s oldest underground metro line.

Tokyo’s nominal gross domestic output reached 120.2 trillion yen (US$887.9 billion) in fiscal year 2022, accounting for 21.2% of Japan’s economic output—equivalent to 8.43 million yen or US$62,291 per capita. Including the Greater Tokyo Area, it is the world’s second-largest metropolitan economy after New York, with a 2022 gross metropolitan product estimated at US$2.08 trillion. Although Tokyo’s status as a leading global financial hub declined during Japan’s Lost Decades since the 1990s—when the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) was the world’s largest, with a market capitalization roughly 1.5 times that of the NYSE—it remains a major financial center, and the TSE is still among the top five stock exchanges globally.

The Globalization and World Cities Research Network classifies Tokyo as an Alpha+ city. It ranked 14th in the 2024 Global Livability Ranking and has been named the world’s safest city by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The name Tokyo was originally written as a kanji compound meaning “estuary,” referencing the settlement’s location at the meeting of the Sumida River and Tokyo Bay. In 1868, during the Meiji Restoration, the city was renamed Tokyo, incorporating the character for “capital” (as in Kyoto, Beijing, and other East Asian capitals). In the early Meiji period, an alternative pronunciation, “Tokei,” was sometimes used, appearing in some official English documents, but this pronunciation is now obsolete.

The area of present-day Tokyo has been inhabited since ancient times, with multiple Paleolithic sites (circa 40,000–16,000 BC) found within the city. During the Jōmon period, rising sea levels from glacial retreat pushed Tokyo Bay’s coastline inland to the edge of what is now the Imperial Palace, as evidenced by shell middens like the Omori Shell Mounds. The Yayoi period, named after the Yayoi 2-chōme Site in Bunkyo (where the first Yayoi pottery was excavated in 1884 by Shozo Arisaka), saw the spread of agriculture.

In 534, a large conflict in the region led Emperor Ankan to appoint the victor, Kasahara no Omi, as provincial governor. Senso-ji temple in Asakusa was founded in 645. Under the Ritsuryō system of the Asuka period, most of modern Tokyo was part of Musashi Province. After the fall of the Kingdom of Baekje following the Battle of Baekgang in the 660s, thousands of refugees resettled in Musashi.

During the Heian period, the Edo clan fortified the area in the late 12th century, and in 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle to defend against the Chiba clan. After Dōkan’s assassination in 1486, the Ohgigayatsu branch of the Uesugi clan took control, followed by the Later Hōjō clan.