Tokyo (/ˈtoʊkioʊ/; Japanese: 東京, Tōkyō, [toːkʲoː]ⓘ), 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. Tokyo Metropolitan Area, which includes Tokyo and nearby six prefectures, is the world's first most-populous metropolitan area in the world, with 40.8 million residents . Tokyo's nominal gross domestic output was 113.7 trillion yen or US$1.04 trillion in FY2021 and accounted for 20.7% of the country's total economic output, which is coverted to 8.07 million yen or US$73,820 per capita. Including the Greater Tokyo Area, Tokyo is the second-largest metropolitan economy in the world after New York, with a 2022 gross metropolitan product estimated at US$2.08 trillion.
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.
Before the 17th century, Tokyo, then known as Edo, was mainly a fishing village. It gained political prominence in 1603 when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. By the mid-18th century, Edo was among the world's largest cities with over a million residents. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo, and the city was renamed Tokyo (lit.'Eastern Capital'). In 1923, Tokyo was damaged substantially by the Great Kantō earthquake, and the city was later badly damaged by allied bombing raids during World War II. Beginning in the late 1940s, Tokyo underwent rapid reconstruction and expansion that contributed to the era's so-called Japanese economic miracle in which Japan's economy propelled to the second-largest in the world behind that of the United States. , the city is home to 29 of the world's largest 500 companies listed in the annual Fortune Global 500. (Full article...)
A road passing through a part of Tokyo that was destroyed in the 10 March 1945 air raid
A road passing through a part of Tokyo which was destroyed in the 10 March 1945 air raid
On the night of 9/10 March 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan. Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.
The attack on Tokyo was an intensification of the air raids on Japan which had begun in June 1944. Prior to this operation, the USAAF had focused on a precision bombing campaign against Japanese industrial facilities. These attacks were generally unsuccessful, which contributed to the decision to shift to firebombing. The operation during the early hours of 10 March was the first major firebombing raid against a Japanese city. The USAAF units employed significantly different tactics from those used in precision raids, including bombing by night with the aircraft flying at low altitudes. The extensive destruction caused by the raid led to these tactics becoming standard for the USAAF's B-29s until the end of the war. (Full article...)
Image 2A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Tokyo)
Image 35The five-story pagoda of Kan'ei-ji, which was constructed during the reign of Tokugawa Hidetada and required the building of the Kimon (Devil's Gate) (from History of Tokyo)
Image 36Commodore Matthew Perry's fleet during his second visit to Tokyo in 1854 (from History of Tokyo)
Image 42Picture of the Upper Class, a c. 1794–1795 painting by Utamaro. The woman on the left is lower in class than the woman on the right, who wears more colorful clothes (from History of Tokyo)
... that Paralympian Gemma Collis-McCann, who sits on wheelchair fencing's new Gender Equity Commission, has been chosen to join three men as the UK's wheelchair fencing team in Tokyo?
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