City

Tokyo

Also Known As Edo The city's name before the 1868 renaming.

Eastern Asia

Tokyo is the capital of Japan, lying at the head of Tokyo Bay on the central coast of Honshu in the Kanto region. A small fishing village named Edo grew into the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate from 1603 and had passed a million residents by the nineteenth century, among the largest cities in the world at the time. Following the Meiji Restoration, an imperial edict of 3 September 1868 renamed Edo as Tokyo, meaning Eastern Capital, and the seat of government moved there from Kyoto. The 23 special wards that form the city core held a population over 14 million as of 2023, while the wider Greater Tokyo Area reaches roughly 33 million residents, the most populous metropolitan region on Earth.

Facts

Population

14,254,039 1

Tokyo Metropolis (city proper) total, May 2025; replaces a soft-deleted Int-typed fact that mismatched its own wards-only note against a metropolis-level figure.

Area (sq km)

2194 1

Tokyo Metropolis (city proper) total area, same administrative level as the population figure above.

Founding Year

1457 1

Refers to Ota Dokan's construction of Edo Castle on the site, per the infobox's own Established field; the settlement was renamed Tokyo only in 1868 when it became the imperial capital.

Population Estimate Year

2025 1

May 2025 estimate, the infobox's most recent dated figure.

Elevation (m)

6 2

Latitude

35.68972 degrees north 1

Longitude

139.69222 degrees east 1

Elevation Band

Lowland 3

Climate Zone

Temperate 4

Time Zone

UTC+09:00 3

Learn More

A Village Renamed

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Tokyo did not become a capital by growing into the role gradually. Edo was a minor fishing settlement until Tokugawa Ieyasu made it his base in 1603, after which it grew explosively as the seat of the shogunate, passing a million residents by the eighteenth century while the emperor and his court remained hundreds of kilometers away in Kyoto, the formal capital in name only. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 finally matched the name to the power: an imperial edict of 3 September that year renamed Edo as Tokyo, Eastern Capital, and the young Emperor Meiji relocated there from Kyoto soon after. The rename recognized what had already been true in practice for two and a half centuries.

The Densest Address on Earth

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

No metropolitan region on the planet holds more people than the one built around Tokyo. The 23 special wards that form the historic city core, roughly the area Tokyo prefecture calls its urban heart, held over 14 million residents as of 2023, but the wider built-up region, the Greater Tokyo Area reaching out through Yokohama, Kawasaki, Saitama and beyond, holds closer to 33 million, a population larger than most countries assembled around one rail network. That network is a large part of the story: Tokyo grew dense rather than sprawling because its commuter rail system, among the busiest in the world, made living an hour or more from the center compatible with working at it.

Connections

Associated With

Japan

Tokyo is Japan's capital.

Source Tokyo (Wikipedia)

Japan

Source Tokyo (Wikipedia)

Tokyo (Wikipedia)

This source names Tokyo directly: "The Wikipedia article on Tokyo, consulted for its population figures, the 1868 renaming from Edo, and its location on Tokyo Bay."

Source Tokyo (Wikipedia)

Capital Of

Japan

Tokyo is the capital of Japan.

Source Tokyo (Wikipedia)

Long-Form Articles

A Village Renamed

The Densest Address on Earth

In the Other Atlases