Tokyo is Japan's
capital and the country's largest city.
Tokyo is also one
of Japan's 47 prefectures, but is called a
metropolis (to) rather than a prefecture (ken).
The metropolis of Tokyo consists of 23 city
wards (ku), 26 cities, 5 towns and 8 villages,
including the Izu and Ogasawara Islands, several
small Pacific Islands in the south of Japan's
main island Honshu.
The 23 city wards
(ku) are the center of Tokyo and make up about
one third of the metropolis' area, while housing
roughly eight of Tokyo's approximately twelve
million residents.
Prior to 1868,
Tokyo was known as Edo. A small castle town in
the 16th century, Edo became Japan's political
center in 1603 when Tokugawa Ieyasu established
his feudal government there. A few decades
later, Edo had grown into one of the world's
most populous cities.
With the Meiji
Restoration of 1868, the emperor and capital
were moved from Kyoto to Edo, which was renamed
Tokyo ("Eastern Capital"). Large parts
of Tokyo were destroyed in the Great Kanto
Earthquake of 1923 and in the air raids of 1945.
