Matsudo

Matsudo is a city in the far northwestern corner of Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on the eastern bank of the Edo River that forms its western border. It lies about 10 to 20 kilometers from downtown Tokyo and about 20 to 30 kilometers from the prefectural capital of Chiba, and it has grown into the fourth-largest city in the prefecture and a major bedroom community of the Greater Tokyo Area. Most of its land is alluvial plain only a few meters above sea level, rising to the Shimosa Plateau in the east. In the Edo period the area was land controlled directly by the Tokugawa shogunate, held horse ranches for the shogun's armies and served as a post station on the Mito Kaido road, and Matsudo attained city status on 1 October 1943.