A History of Tokyo

Podcast Transcript

Tokyo, Japan, is currently the largest city in the world, with a total metropolitan population of over 37 million people.

However, it wasn’t always the case.

In fact, unlike many great cities of the world, Tokyo’s roots do not go back to ancient times. Its importance as a city is relatively recent, historically speaking.

It was almost completely destroyed several times yet has come back to be a major center of technology, culture, and finance.

Learn more about Tokyo and how it became the most populous city in the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Tokyo’s story is very different from that of other great cities of the world.

Many of the world’s greatest cities have a history going back thousands of years, during which they served as capital or at least a seat of power.

Not only was Tokyo not a capital for most of Japanese history, but it also wasn’t even a city for most of that time.

Tokyo is located in the southeastern part of Honshu, Japan’s largest island, on the northwest edge of Tokyo Bay. It lies within the Kant? Plain, one of Japan’s most expansive lowland areas, providing ample space for its sprawling metropolitan development.

Surrounded by mountains to the west and bordered by water to the east, Its strategic position on the bay made it a vital hub for trade and transportation. Historically, its importance was its location on the Edo River, which empties into Tokyo Bay.

The ancient history of Tokyo begins with evidence of human habitation during the J?mon pre-civilization period, dating back 14,000 to 300 BC, when hunter-gatherer communities lived in the region. Archaeological discoveries, including shell mounds, pottery fragments, and pit dwellings, suggest that the area was a thriving settlement during this time, benefiting from the abundant natural resources of the Kanto Plain.

By the Yayoi period, 300 BC to 300 CE, wet-rice farming and metal tools were introduced, leading to more permanent settlements in the area. However, Tokyo remained relatively unimportant during Japan’s ancient periods, overshadowed by political and cultural centers in the Kansai region, such as Nara and Kyoto.

Around the year 1200 was the first reference to a village in the location of modern Tokyo. The village was called Edo.

Edo was a small, largely unremarkable fishing village located on the marshy edges of what is now Tokyo Bay. Its strategic location at the confluence of rivers and its proximity to fertile land in the Kanto Plain made it an ideal, if underdeveloped, site.

Edo’s transformation began in 1457 when ?ta D?kan, a samurai and military engineer, constructed Edo Castle as a fortified base. This marked the beginning of Edo’s development into a regional stronghold, but it remained a modest settlement for another 150 years.

The fate of the village of Edo changed in 1590 when Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo his base of operations.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was a warlord who would go on to unify the warring factions of Japan. After his victory, he was appointed shogun of Japan by the emperor in 1603, and Edo became the de facto capital of Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The imperial capital remained in Kyoto, but the emperor was a puppet figure at this point and the real seat of power of Edo.

As Japan’s new power center, Edo grew rapidly. Within 100 years, it went from a sleepy fishing village to one of the largest cities in the world.

One of the greatest disasters to hit the growing city of Edo occurred in 1657: The Great Fire of Meireki.

The fire began on March 2 and raged for three days, fueled by Edo’s densely packed wooden buildings and narrow streets. Legend suggests it started in a Temple when a kimono caught fire, with strong winds quickly spreading the flames across the city.

The fire destroyed 70% of the city and killed an estimated 100,000 people.

The aftermath prompted major reconstruction efforts, including wider streets, improved firebreaks, and the relocation of temples and shrines to reduce fire hazards. Despite the destruction, the fire spurred Edo’s transformation into a more resilient and systematically planned city.

At the start of the 18th century, Edo had a population exceeding one million. It was characterized by a strict social hierarchy, a thriving merchant class, and a rich cultural life, which defined the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Edo’s development included a complex system of moats and canals and a grid-based street system.

While Edo grew as a city under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan remained culturally and technically stagnant. This period of the Tokugawa Shogunate became known as the Edo Period.

This became an ever-growing problem as Japan had more and more contact with the outside world, especially Europeans.

A cadre of young Japanese wanted to change and modernize. They used the death of the Shogun and the placement of a new young emperor to end the shogunate and reestablish imperial rule in 1868.

This became known as the Meiji Restoration, named after the new emperor, a topic I covered in a previous episode.

The Meiji Restoration saw rapid changes in Japanese society. It also saw major changes to Edo.

The biggest change was that the city’s name was changed from Edo to Tokyo. The word Tokyo simply means the “Eastern Capital.” It is derived from two kanji characters: ? t?, meaning “east,” and ? ky?, meaning “capital.”

Along with the name change, it also became the new imperial capital of Japan, with the emperor moving operations from Kyoto.

The Meiji era brought rapid modernization and Westernization, including constructing Western-style buildings, railroads, and telegraph systems.

The start of the Meiji Restoration saw a mass emigration out of Tokyo. Despite having a million people at the start of the 18th century, by 1873, the population of Tokyo had dropped to about 600,000 people.

I should note that the population numbers I’ll be giving are for the city of Tokyo proper, not the greater urban area outside its borders unless otherwise noted.

This was happening in cities all over Japan as the collapse of the Shogunate and the samurai system caused a great deal of social upheaval.

The population drop was short-lived. Tokyo became a hub for industry and commerce, attracting people across Japan.

By 1891, the population of Tokyo was back to 1.1 million people.

Tokyo began growing even faster. By 1909, the population of Tokyo had reached 2.1 million people.

In 1915, construction began on the Tokyo Subway system.

The 1920s saw population growth in Tokyo flatline. One of the major reasons was the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.

The Earthquake struck the Tokyo-Yokohama area on September 1, 1923, with a magnitude of 7.9, making it one of the deadliest earthquakes in Japan’s history. The quake lasted approximately 4 to 10 minutes, causing widespread destruction across the entire region.

Fires ignited by overturned cooking stoves rapidly spread through the densely packed wooden buildings, compounding the disaster. In Tokyo, the firestorm was particularly devastating, consuming entire neighborhoods and killing tens of thousands.

Yokohama, a major port city outside Tokyo, was almost entirely destroyed.

In total, over 140,000 people were killed or went missing, and millions were left homeless. The earthquake spurred significant rebuilding efforts, modernizing Tokyo’s infrastructure while leaving a lasting impact on its urban development and disaster preparedness strategies.

The population sprang back, reaching 2.4 million by 1930.

As Japan was placed on a wartime footing in the 1930s, Tokyo became even more important as the center of planning and industrial efforts.

Throughout the 1930s, the population of Tokyo exploded, and it saw the largest increase in its population at that point.

In 1940, the population of Tokyo reached 6.7 million people.

The Second World War was not good for Tokyo. Being the dominant city in Japan, it was the target of Allied bombing campaigns.

It began with the Doolittle Raid, which did very little actual damage to the city but was a huge psychological blow and escalated throughout the war.

The worst firebombing took place on the night of March 9-10, 1945.

It was one of the most devastating aerial bombardments in human history. Conducted by the United States Army Air Forces, the operation, known as Operation Meetinghouse, involved 334 B-29 bombers dropping approximately 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs over Tokyo. The bombs, designed to ignite fires, targeted densely populated areas with wooden and paper-built homes, creating a massive firestorm.

The attack destroyed roughly 16 square miles of the city, obliterating entire neighborhoods. It killed an estimated 100,000 people, injured tens of thousands, and left over a million residents homeless.

The scale of destruction actually surpassed that of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in terms of immediate casualties.

Operation Meetinghouse and the firebombing of Tokyo will be the subject of a future episode.

Tokyo’s population dropped in the 1940s. By 1950, it was only 5.3 million.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Tokyo experienced rapid growth and transformation, emerging as a symbol of Japan’s postwar recovery and economic miracle. Following the devastation of World War II, Tokyo underwent extensive rebuilding, with a focus on modern infrastructure and urban planning.

By the 1950s, the city began recovering its population and economy, supported by investments in manufacturing and technology.

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics marked a turning point in the city’s development, showcasing Japan’s re-emergence on the global stage. Major infrastructure projects, including the construction of highways, modern rail networks, and the first Shinkansen bullet train, were completed to support the event.

These improvements laid the groundwork for Tokyo to become the hub of commerce, culture, and transportation for all of Japan.

In 1965, the greater Tokyo metropolitan area reached a population of 15 million people and became the largest urban area on Earth, a title it has retained to this day.

The economic boom of the 1960s further fueled Tokyo’s urbanization, with a rapid influx of people from rural areas seeking employment opportunities. This led to a dramatic expansion of the city, with new residential areas, business districts, and industrial zones emerging. Despite challenges like overcrowding and pollution, Tokyo cemented its position as Japan’s economic and cultural center during this period, setting the stage for its rise as a global metropolis.

Tokyo had become primate city of Japan.

A primate city is the largest city in a country, significantly more populous and economically, politically, or culturally dominant than any other city in the nation. It typically functions as the primary hub for national activities and often eclipses secondary cities in influence and development.

Not every country has a primate city. For example, London is the primate city for the UK, and Mexico City is for Mexico, but the US doesn’t have one.

Primate cities…..also a future episode.

This period also saw the expansion of the subway system. The Tokyo Subway system is one of the world’s most extensive, efficient, and heavily used urban transit networks, serving millions of passengers daily.

It operates over 300 kilometers of track across numerous interconnected lines, seamlessly integrating with Japan’s broader railway system.

Renowned for its punctuality, cleanliness, and complex yet highly navigable layout, the system features color-coded lines, multilingual signage, and advanced ticketing options. It is the thing that allows a city of this size to operate and function.

The economy in the 1980s was running hot to the point it was considered an economic bubble. Real estate prices in Tokyo rose to astronomical levels. For example, by 1989, the estimated market value of the land in Tokyo’s Imperial Palace grounds exceeded that of the entire state of California.

At one point, the office of Northwest Airlines in Tokyo was valued more than the rest of the airline combined.

The bubble burst in the early 1990s, leading to a prolonged period of economic stagnation and a dramatic decline in property values, known as Japan’s “Lost Decade.”

Despite economic challenges, Tokyo remains a global leader in technology, fashion, and pop culture. It is the location of several of the world’s largest companies and it is consistently rated as one of the best cities in the world to visit.

Tokyo’s history is a remarkable transformation journey from a small fishing village to a global metropolis. The world’s largest city exists because a 16th century decided that would be a good place to have his headquarters.