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Tokyo is the ''de facto'' Imperial and political capital of Japan, as well as being one of the chief commercial, financial, and arts centers in the world. As a metropolitan [[Prefectures|prefecture]] headed not by a mayor but by a governor, Tôkyô-to (東京都, Tokyo Metropolis) is not officially considered a "city," but the 23 special wards (''tokubetsu ku'') and 39 additional municipalities which comprise the metropolitan prefecture constitute one of the largest and most populous metropolitan areas in the world, and are home to a very significant portion of the Japanese national population. The [[Izu Islands]] which stretch south from Tokyo proper, along with the distant [[Ogasawara Islands]], are also administered as part of Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture; both consist of small, sparsely populated islands, many of which are uninhabited nature preserves or are restricted to military use.
Tokyo is the ''de facto'' Imperial and political capital of Japan, as well as being one of the chief commercial, financial, and arts centers in the world. As a metropolitan [[Prefectures|prefecture]] headed not by a mayor but by a governor, Tôkyô-to (東京都, Tokyo Metropolis) is not officially considered a "city," but the 23 special wards (''tokubetsu ku'') and 39 additional municipalities which comprise the metropolitan prefecture constitute one of the largest and most populous metropolitan areas in the world, and are home to a very significant portion of the Japanese national population. The [[Izu Islands]] which stretch south from Tokyo proper, along with the distant [[Ogasawara Islands]], are also administered as part of Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture; both consist of small, sparsely populated islands, many of which are uninhabited nature preserves or are restricted to military use.
Formerly known as [[Edo]], and the seat of the [[Tokugawa shogunate]] from [[1603]] until [[1868]], the city was formally renamed Tokyo ("Eastern Capital") on 1868/7/17, and became the Imperial capital sometime after that, in the 1870s or 1880s.
==History==
==History==
Edo dropped from a population height of around 1.3 million in the early 19th century to just over 500,000 in [[1869]], returning to peak levels only around [[1889]].<ref>Fujitani, 39.</ref>
===Meiji Period===
The relaxation of ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]'' obligations in [[1862]] meant that [[han|domains]] no longer needed to maintain mansions and extensive staffs or retainer bases in Edo. Combined with the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1868 [[Meiji Restoration]], the [[abolition of the han]] in [[1871]], and the attenuation of samurai stipends, many ''[[daimyo|daimyô]]'' abandoned their [[daimyo yashiki|mansions]] in the city in the 1860s-1870s, and returned to their home provinces along with their families and (former) retainers, with many other samurai leaving the city in other ways. Edo thus dropped from a population height of around 1.3 million in the early 19th century to just over 500,000 in [[1869]], returning to peak levels only around [[1889]].<ref>Fujitani, 39.</ref> The dramatic loss of so many consumers from the city over a relatively short period of time also had a significant depressive effect upon the city's commercial economy, from which it also took some time to recover.
Though Tokyo is generally said today to have become the Imperial capital of Japan in [[1868]], when Edo was officially renamed Tokyo, [[Edo castle]] was designated the Imperial Palace, and the [[Meiji Emperor]] took up residence there, in fact there was little agreement at the time that Tokyo was to become (or had become) ''the'' Imperial capital. According to various metrics or definitions, Tokyo was not in fact ''the'' Imperial capital until sometime in the 1870s or 1880s, with some of the most significant [[Meiji government]] officials describing it as an ''[[anzaisho]]'', a temporary court, up until 1889. Figures such as [[Eto Shinpei|Etô Shinpei]] and [[Oki Takato|Ôki Takatô]], the first governor of Tokyo, expressing fears that with the [[Boshin War]] not yet over, Japan might split into east and west, proposed establishing Edo as a second imperial capital, a capital of the East, such that the Emperor might travel between Kyoto and Tokyo, and in so doing watch over the entire country, and enforce unity. [[Kido Takayoshi]] similarly advocated having Edo as an Eastern Capital, [[Osaka]] as a Western Capital, and Kyoto as the Imperial Capital. As a result of these concerns, the Imperial Edict which officially declared Edo "Tokyo" on 1868/7/17 included that "the emperor looked upon ‘the realm as one house, the East and West equally.’"<ref name=fujitani4445>Fujitani, 44-45.</ref>
Other officials, including [[Okubo Toshimichi|Ôkubo Toshimichi]] and [[Okuma Shigenobu|Ôkuma Shigenobu]] seem to have been less concerned, immediately, with what Tokyo should be or become, but rather with getting the Emperor out of Kyoto, and having him tour the [[provinces]], to be seen by the people, and to be seen surveying the land and the people, in order to reinforce the nationalistic connection between the people and the Emperor (and the nation); these tours were also aimed at turning the earlier conception of the emperor as lofty and aloof from politics into a conception of the Emperor as existing at the center of, or even embodying or being equivalent to, government.<ref name=fujitani4445/>
For these reasons, little effort was made in the first decades of the Meiji period to develop Tokyo into a modern Imperial national capital. National monuments, broad boulevards suitable for national parades and large public gatherings only began to be built, for the most part, in the 1880s, and for at least a few years after the Restoration, many former [[daimyo yashiki|''daimyô'' mansions]], as well as much of the Imperial Palace (Edo castle) itself, were simply left to fall into disrepair.
===Taishô through World War II===
===Postwar to Today===
By the 1970s, fully one-quarter of Japan's population lived in or around Tokyo.<ref>Anne Walthall, Introduction, ''The Human Tradition in Modern Japan'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2002), xvii.</ref> Today, that proportion is even higher.
By the 1970s, fully one-quarter of Japan's population lived in or around Tokyo.<ref>Anne Walthall, Introduction, ''The Human Tradition in Modern Japan'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2002), xvii.</ref> Today, that proportion is even higher.
