The Tokyo Portal

Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū, Tokyo is unique among the prefectures, providing certain municipal services characteristic of a city, as defined by Japanese law.

Because it is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family, Tokyo is the de facto capital of Japan. The name Tokyo literally means eastern capital.

The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, although each administratively a city in its own right, constitute the area often incorrectly considered to be the "city" of Tokyo and, if they were a city, would collectively be one of the largest cities in the world with a total population of over 8 million people. The total population of the prefecture exceeds 12 million.

The Greater Tokyo Area, centered on Tokyo but also including Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama, is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with a population of over 35 million people. It has been the world's most populous urban area since between 1965 and 1970, and despite Japan's overall declining population, is still growing.

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Hachikō, known in Japanese chūken Hachikō, was an Akita dog born in the city of Odate, Akita Prefecture remembered for his loyalty to his master. In 1924, Hachikō was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesamurō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. During his owner's life, Hachikō saw him off from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. Even after Ueno's death in May 1925, Hachikō returned every day to the station to wait for him. Hachikō's devotion to his lost master moved those around him, who nicknamed him "faithful dog". Others at the station initially thought he was waiting for something else or roaming around, but later realized he was waiting for his dead owner. This continued for 10 years, with Hachikō appearing only in the evening time, precisely when the train was due at the station. That same year, another of Ueno's former students (who had become something of an expert on Akitas) saw the dog at the station and followed him to the Kobayashi home where he learned the history of Hachikō's life.

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Credit: Underwood & Underwood

Looking north down a street in Ginza, the most important thoroughfare in Tokyo, Japan, c.1904.

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You are invited to participate in Tokyo task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the Tokyo metropolis, including the Special wards of Tokyo, West Tokyo, and the islands.

In the news

Did you know...

• ... that the arcade game Heiankyo Alien was originally designed as a personal computer game by the University of Tokyo's Theoretical Science Group?
• ...that the most recent of the six different methods of total synthesis of the anti-cancer drug paclitaxel, a drug originally derived from the rare Pacific Yew, was developed at the Tokyo University of Science in 1999?
• ...that in the peak days of Iranian migration to Japan, Iran Air flights to Tokyo were fully booked several years in advance?
• ...that although the first meeting of the Indian Independence League took place in Tokyo in March 1942, it was not formally proclaimed until June of that year in Bangkok?

  

• ...that the First Tokyo Middle School (pictured), one of the top public secondary schools in Japan, expelled all of its Korean international students in 1905 when they demonstrated against the Eulsa Treaty between Japan and Korea?
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