Tokyo / CITY GUIDE
Tokyo grew from Edo, an older settlement whose castle was built by Ōta Dōkan in 1457. Its decisive transformation came when Tokugawa Ieyasu established his shogunate here in 1603. The military government, great lords’ residences, waterways and trading districts turned Edo into a vast urban centre. In 1868, with the Meiji Restoration, Edo was renamed Tokyo: “eastern capital.”
Tokyo is not one city municipality. Tokyo Metropolis is a prefecture-level government covering 23 special wards in the urban core, as well as cities, towns and villages farther west and on outlying islands. Each special ward has its own mayor and assembly. Shinjuku, Shibuya and Minato are wards; Asakusa, Harajuku and Ginza are neighbourhoods within wards. Our guides group nearby places for exploring, so their edges do not always follow administrative boundaries.
Another way to read Tokyo is through its terrain. Yamanote—the upland districts—was historically associated with samurai residences on the hills west of the castle. Shitamachi, the “low town,” developed around the lower-lying commercial and artisan districts towards the rivers and bay. These are shifting cultural identities, rather than fixed modern boundaries or a simple division between rich and poor. Look for their traces in the slopes and former estates around Azabu, or the shops, workshops and festival traditions around Asakusa.