The capital city formerly called Edo before its 1868 renaming was Tokyo.
Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868, shortly after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. The new name means “Eastern Capital,” distinguishing the city from Kyoto, the imperial capital farther west. The emperor’s residence was subsequently moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, reinforcing its role as Japan’s national center.
Edo had already become a huge and influential city before the name change. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, it grew around Edo Castle and served as the shogunate’s seat of government from 1603. By the early eighteenth century, its population is often estimated to have exceeded one million, making it one of the world’s largest cities.
A common mix-up is to treat Edo and Tokyo as entirely different locations. They are successive names for the same urban center, although Tokyo later expanded far beyond the boundaries of the old city. Kyoto remained culturally and historically important, but Tokyo became the political and administrative heart of modern Japan.