Tokyo is the capital city of Japan, located on the eastern coast of Honshu.
Tokyo developed around Edo, a castle town that became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate in the early seventeenth century. In 1868, during the Meiji Restoration, the imperial court moved from Kyoto to Edo, and the city was renamed Tokyo, meaning “Eastern Capital.” It has remained Japan’s political center ever since.
Modern Tokyo is a metropolitan prefecture and one of the world’s largest urban areas. Its central districts include Chiyoda, where the Imperial Palace and Japan’s national government are located. The wider metropolitan region extends far beyond the historic city center and includes dense residential, commercial and industrial areas.
Kyoto was Japan’s imperial capital for more than a millennium, which is why it is sometimes mistakenly named as the present capital. Kyoto remains a major cultural and historical city, but Tokyo is the national capital.