Tokyo
There are several national parks within Tokyo, among them:
- Meiji no Mori Takao Quasi-National Park, around Mount Takao to the south of Hachiōji
- Ogasawara National Park. As of 2006, efforts were being made to make Ogasawara National Park a UNESCO natural World Heritage Site.
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Cityscape
Architecture in Tokyo has largely been shaped by Tokyo's history. Twice in recent history has the metropolis been left in ruins: first in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and later after extensive firebombing in World War II.[18] Because of this, Tokyo's current urban landscape is one of modern and contemporary architecture, and older buildings are scarce.[18]
Tokyo also contains numerous parks and gardens.
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Climate and seismology
| Climate chart for Tokyo | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|
45
10
1
|
60
10
2
|
100
13
4
|
125
18
10
|
138
23
15
|
185
25
19
|
126
29
22
|
148
31
24
|
180
26
20
|
164
21
14
|
89
17
9
|
46
12
4
|
| temperatures in °C • precipitation totals in mm source: Climate-Charts.com |
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Imperial conversion
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Tokyo lies in the humid subtropical climate zone (Koppen climate classification Cfa),[19] with hot humid summers and generally mild winters with cool spells. Annual rainfall averages 1,380 mm (55 inches), with a wetter summer and a drier winter. Snowfall is sporadic, but does occur almost annually.[20] Tokyo is an example of an urban heat island; the city's population is a significant contributor to its climate.[21][22] Tokyo has been cited as a "convincing example of the relationship between urban growth and climate". Tokyo also often sees typhoons each year, though few are strong. The last one to hit was Fitow in 2007.[21]
Tokyo was hit by powerful earthquakes in 1703, 1782, 1812, 1855 and 1923.[23][24] The 1923 earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of 8.3, killed 142,000 people.
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Economy
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Tokyo is one of the three world finance "command centres", along with New York and London. Tokyo has the largest metropolitan economy in the world. According to a study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Tokyo urban area (35.2 million people) had a total GDP of US$1,191 billion in 2005 (at purchasing power parity), ranking again as the largest urban agglomeration GDP in the world.[25] See also List of cities by GDP.
Tokyo is a major international finance center,[26] houses the headquarters of several of the world's largest investment banks and insurance companies, and serves as a hub for Japan's transportation, publishing, and broadcasting industries. During the centralized growth of Japan's economy following World War II, many large firms moved their headquarters from cities such as Osaka (the historical commercial capital) to Tokyo, in an attempt to take advantage of better access to the government. This trend has begun to slow due to ongoing population growth in Tokyo and the high cost of living there.
Tokyo was rated by the Economist Intelligence Unit as the most expensive (highest cost-of-living) city in the world for 14 years in a row ending in 2006.[27] This analysis is for living a Western corporate executive lifestyle, with items like a detached house and several automobiles.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange is Japan's largest stock exchange, and second largest in the world by market capitalization and fourth largest by share turnover. In 1990 at the end of the Japanese asset price bubble, it accounted for more than 60% of the world stock market value.[28]
Tokyo had 8,460 ha (20,900 acres) of agricultural land as of 2003,[29] according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, placing it last among the nation's prefectures. The farmland is concentrated in Western Tokyo. Perishables such as vegetables, fruits, and flowers can be conveniently shipped to the markets in the eastern part of the prefecture. Japanese leaf spinach and spinach are the most important vegetables; as of 2000, Tokyo supplied 32.5% of the Japanese leaf spinach sold at its central produce market.
With 36% of its area covered by forest, Tokyo has extensive growths of cryptomeria and Japanese cypress, especially in the mountainous western communities of Akiruno, Ōme, Okutama, Hachiōji, Hinode, and Hinohara. Decreases in the price of lumber, increases in the cost of production, and advancing old age among the forestry population have resulted in a decline in Tokyo's output. In addition, pollen, especially from cryptomeria, is a major allergen for the nearby population centers.
Tokyo Bay was once a major source of fish. Presently, most of Tokyo's fish production comes from the outer islands, such as Izu Ōshima and Hachijōjima. Skipjack tuna, nori, and aji are among the ocean products.
Tourism in Tokyo is also a contributor to the economy.
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Demographics
| By area1 |
Tokyo |
12.6 million |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| By age² |
Juveniles (age 0-14) |
1.433 million (12%) |
||
| By hours³ |
Day |
14.667 million |
||
| By nationality |
Foreign residents |
353,8264 |
||
|
|
||||
Over eight million people live within Tokyo's 23 wards. During the daytime, the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and students commute from adjacent areas.[30] This effect is even more pronounced in the three central wards of Chiyoda, Chūō, and Minato, whose collective population is less than 300,000 at night, but over two million during the day. The entire prefecture has 12,790,000 residents in October 2007 (8,657,000 in 23 wards), with an increase of over 3 million in the day. Tokyo is at its highest population ever, while that of the 23 wards peak official count was 8,893,094 in the 1965 Census, with the count dipping below 8 million in the 1995 Census. People continue to move back into the core city as land prices have fallen dramatically.
As of 2005, the five most common foreign nationalities found in Tokyo are Chinese (123,661), Korean (106,697), Filipino (31,077), American (18,848) and British (7,696).[31]
The 1889 Census recorded 1,389,600 people in Tokyo City, Japan's largest city at the time.
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Transportation
Tokyo is Japan's largest domestic and international hub for rail, ground, and air transportation. Public transportation within Tokyo is dominated by an extensive network of clean and efficient[32] trains and subways run by a variety of operators, with buses, monorails and trams playing a secondary feeder role.
Within Ōta, one of the 23 special wards, Tokyo International Airport ("Haneda") offers mainly domestic flights. Outside Tokyo, Narita International Airport, in Chiba Prefecture, is the major gateway for international travelers.
Various islands governed by Tokyo have their own airports. Hachijōjima (Hachijojima Airport), Miyakejima (Miyakejima Airport), and Izu Ōshima (Oshima Airport) have service to Tokyo International and other airports.
Rail is the primary mode of transportation in Tokyo, which has the most extensive urban railway network in the world and an equally extensive network of surface lines. JR East operates Tokyo's largest railway network, including the Yamanote Line loop that circles the center of downtown Tokyo. Two organizations operate the subway network: the private Tokyo Metro and the governmental Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation. The metropolitan government and private carriers operate bus routes. Local, regional, and national services are available, with major terminals at the giant railroad stations, including Tokyo and Shinjuku.
Expressways link the capital to other points in the Greater Tokyo area, the Kantō region, and the islands of Kyūshū and Shikoku.
Other transportation includes taxis operating in the special wards and the cities and towns. Also long-distance ferries serve the islands of Tokyo and carry passengers and cargo to domestic and foreign ports.
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Education
Tokyo has many universities, junior colleges, and vocational schools. Many of Japan's most prestigious universities are in Tokyo, the University of Tokyo being the most prestigious[33] of all. National universities located in Tokyo include Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo Institute of Technology and University of Tokyo. There is only one public university (i.e., not national): the Tokyo Metropolitan University. Keio University and Waseda University, top private universities in Japan,[34] are located in Tokyo. Tokyo also has a few universities well-known for classes conducted in English. They include International Christian, Sophia, Waseda University, and Temple University Japan. For an extensive list, see List of universities in Tokyo.
Publicly run kindergartens, elementary schools (years 1 through 6), and junior high schools (7 through 9) are operated by local wards or municipal offices. Public high schools in Tokyo are run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education and are called "Metropolitan High Schools". Tokyo also has many private schools from kindergarten through high school.[35]
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Culture and sports
Tokyo has many museums. In Ueno Park are four national museums: Tokyo National Museum, the country's largest museum and specializing in traditional Japanese art; the National Museum of Western Art; and the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art, with its collections of Japanese modern art as well as over 40,000 Japanese and foreign films.[36] Also in Ueno Park are the National Museum of Science and the public zoo. Other museums include the Nezu Art Museum in Aoyama; the Edo-Tokyo Museum in the Sumida Ward across the Sumida River from the center of Tokyo; and the National Diet Library, National Archives, and the National Museum of Modern Art, which are located near the Imperial Palace.
Tokyo has many theaters for the performing arts as well. These include national and private theaters for traditional forms of Japanese drama (like noh and kabuki) as well as modern dramas. Symphony orchestras and other musical organizations perform Western and traditional music. Tokyo also hosts modern Japanese and Western pop and rock music at venues ranging in size from intimate clubs to internationally known arenas like the Nippon Budokan.
Many different festivals occur throughout Tokyo. Major events include the Sannō at Hie Shrine, the Sanja at Asakusa Shrine, and the biennial Kanda Festivals. The last features a parade with elaborately decorated floats and thousands of people. Annually on the last Saturday of July, an enormous fireworks display over the Sumida River attracts over a million viewers. Once cherry blossoms, or sakura, bloom in spring, many residents gather in Ueno Park, Inokashira Park, and the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden for picnics under the blossoms.
Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan is known internationally for its youth style and fashion.[37]
Cuisine in Tokyo is internationally acclaimed. In November of 2007, Michelin released their guide for fine dining in Tokyo, garnering 191 stars in total, or about twice as many as its nearest competitor, Paris. Eight establishments were awarded the maximum of three stars (Paris has 10), 25 received two stars, and 117 earned one star. Of the eight top-rated restaurants, three offer traditional Japanese fine dining, two are sushi houses, three serve French cuisine. [1]
Sports in Tokyo are diverse. Tokyo is home to two professional baseball clubs, the Yakult Swallows (Meiji-Jingu Stadium) and Yomiuri Giants (Tokyo Dome). The Japan Sumo Association is also headquartered in Tokyo at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan sumo arena where three official sumo tournaments are held annually (in January, May, and September). Football (soccer) clubs in Tokyo include FC Tokyo and Tokyo Verdy 1969, both of which play at Ajinomoto Stadium in Chōfu. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics. National Stadium, also known as Olympic Stadium, Tokyo is host to a number of international sporting events. With a number of world-class sports venues, Tokyo often hosts national and international sporting events such as tennis tournaments, swim meets, marathons, American football exhibition games, judo, karate, etc. Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, in Sendagaya, Shibuya, is a large sports complex that includes swimming pools, training rooms, and a large indoor arena.
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Tokyo in popular media
As the largest population center in Japan and the location of the country's largest broadcasters and studios, Tokyo is frequently the setting for many Japanese movies, television shows, animated series (anime), and comic books (manga). In the kaiju (monster movie) genre, landmarks of Tokyo are routinely destroyed by giant monsters such as Godzilla.
Some Hollywood directors have turned to Tokyo as a filming location for movies set in Tokyo. Well-known examples from the postwar era include Tokyo Joe, My Geisha, and the James Bond film You Only Live Twice; well-known contemporary examples include Kill Bill, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Lost in Translation.
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Sister relationships
Tokyo has eleven sister cities:[38]
In addition, Tokyo has "partnership" agreements with London,[39] Auckland,[40] Paris, and Rome. Many wards and cities within Tokyo also maintain sister-city relationships with other foreign cities.
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See also
[
References
- ^ The Structure of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Retrieved on 2007-10-13.
- ^ See capital of Japan for the debate on whether Tokyo is also the de jure capital.
- ^ www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/bigcities.htm.
- ^ City Mayors: The largest cities and urban areas in the world
- ^ esa.un.org/unup/.
- ^ a b Room, Adrian. Placenames of the World. McFarland & Company (1996), p360. ISBN 0786418141.
- ^ Waley, Paul (2003). Japanese Capitals in Historical Perspective: Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo. Routledge, p. 253. ISBN 070071409X.
- ^ McClain, James (1994). Edo and Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era. Cornell University Press, p. 13. ISBN 080148183X.
- ^ Sorensen, Andre (2004). The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty First Century. RoutledgeCurzon, p. 16. ISBN 0415354226.
- ^ History of Tokyo. Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
- ^ Tipton, Elise K. (2002). Modern Japan: A Social and Political History. Routledge, p. 141.
- ^ Rail Transport in The World's Major Cities (PDF). Japan Railway and Transport Review. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
- ^ Saxonhouse, Gary R. (ed.); Robert M. Stern (ed.) (2004). Japan's Lost Decade: Origins, Consequences and Prospects for Recovery. Blackwell Publishing Limited. ISBN 1405119179.
- ^ Shift of Capital from Tokyo Committee. Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.
- ^ Policy Speech by Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara at the First Regular Session of the Metropolitan Assembly, 2003. Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
- ^ Local Government in Japan p. 41. Council of Local Authorities for International Relations. Retrieved on 2007-10-16.
- ^ Development of the Metropolitan Center, Subcenters and New Base. Bureau of Urban Development, Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.
- ^ a b Hidenobu Jinnai. Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology. University of California Press (1995), p1-3. ISBN 0520071352.
- ^ Peel, M. C., Finlayson, B. L., and McMahon, T. A.: Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 1633-1644, 2007.
- ^ LEAD: Tokyo observes latest ever 1st snowfall
- ^ a b Barry, Roger Graham & Richard J. Chorley. Atmosphere, Weather and Climate. Routledge (2003), p344. ISBN 0415271703.
- ^ Toshiaki Ichinose, Kazuhiro Shimodozono, and Keisuke Hanaki. Impact of anthropogenic heat on urban climate in Tokyo. Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999): 3897-3909.
- ^ A New 1649-1884 Catalog of Destructive Earthquakes near Tokyo and Implications for the Long-term Seismic Process (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.
- ^ A new probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for greater Tokyo (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.
- ^ PriceWaterhouseCoopers, "UK Economic Outlook, March 2007", page 5. "Table 1.2 – Top 30 urban agglomeration GDP rankings in 2005 and illustrative projections to 2020 (using UN definitions and population estimates)" (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-03-09.
- ^ Financial Centres, All shapes and sizes. The Economist. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.
- ^ "Oslo is world's most expensive city: survey", Reuters, January 31, 2006. Retrieved on February 1. (inactive).
- ^ Tokyo stock exchange
- ^ http://www.maff.go.jp/esokuhou/sei200305.pdf
- ^ Population of Tokyo. Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.
- ^ Tokyo Statistical Yearbook 2005, Population. Bureau of General Affairs, Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Retrieved on 2007-10-14.
- ^ A Country Study: Japan Chapter 2, Neighborhoods. The Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2007-10-24.
- ^ Knafelc, Kara. Tokyo, City Guide. Lonely Planet, p. 76. ISBN 1740594509.
- ^ The Causal Effect of Graduating from a Top University on Promotion: Evidence from the University of Tokyo’s Admission Freeze in 1969 (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-10-27.
- ^ 東京都高等学校一覧 (Japanese). Japanese Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2007-10-19.
- ^ National Cultural Facilities (pdf). The Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved on 2007-10-18.
- ^ Perry, Chris (2007-04-25). "Rebels on the Bridge: Subversion, Style, and the New Subculture" (Flash). . Self-published (Scribd) Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ Sister Cities (States) of Tokyo - Tokyo Metropolitan Government
- ^ Greater London Authority - Press Release
- ^ International partnerships (from the Auckland City Council website. Retrieved 2006-10-07.
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External links
| Find more about Tokyo on Wikipedia's sister projects: | |
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- Official Tokyo Metropolitan Government homepage
- Tokyo travel guide from Wikitravel
- Tokyo Map - interactive with points of interest
- Tokyo Japan Travel Guide and Photos
| Preceded by Heian kyō |
Capital of Japan 1868– |
Succeeded by — |
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