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 recognizing 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.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) (警視庁, Keishichō), known locally as simply the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), is the prefectural police of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. Founded in 1874, the TMPD is the largest police force in Japan by number of officers, with a staff of more than 40,000 police officers and over 2,800 civilian personnel.
Image 28The 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 44Picture 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)
Image 54This marker in Nihonbashi is the place from which distances along highways are reckoned. (from Transport in Greater Tokyo)
Image 55A kawaraban (news broadsheet) depicting the damage of the 1855 earthquake (from History of Tokyo)
Image 56A 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)
... that self-help author Beth Kempton held positions at both the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Tokyo and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London?
... that the women's wheelchair race at the 2021 Tokyo Marathon featured just two competitors?
... that pianist Fujita Haruko, one of the first 19 female students enrolled at the University of Tokyo, was taught by Leo Sirota, who was once called the "god of piano"?
... that the first line to STU48's "Hana wa Dare no Mono?", which imagines a world without borders, is often misheard as wishing for a world without Tokyo?
... that episodes of the TV Tokyo late-night show Nogizaka Under Construction are uploaded to YouTube shortly after broadcast, which is considered unusual in Japanese media?