Located at the head of Tokyo Bay, Tokyo is part of the Kantō region on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. Tokyo serves as Japan's economic center and the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers Tokyo's central 23 special wards (which formerly made up Tokyo City), various commuter towns and suburbs in its western area, and two outlying island chains known as the Tokyo Islands. Despite most of the world recognizing Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments which make up the metropolis. Notable special wards in Tokyo include Chiyoda, the site of the National Diet Building and the Tokyo Imperial Palace, Shinjuku, the city's administrative center, and Shibuya, a commercial, cultural, and business hub in the city.
The tower is the primary television and radio broadcast site for the Kantō region; the older Tokyo Tower no longer gives complete digital terrestrial television broadcasting coverage because it is surrounded by high-rise buildings. Skytree was completed on Leap Day, 29 February 2012, with the tower opening to the public on 22 May 2012. The tower is the centrepiece of a large commercial development funded by Tobu Railway (which owns the complex) and a group of six terrestrial broadcasters headed by NHK. Trains stop at the adjacent Tokyo Skytree Station and nearby Oshiage Station. The complex is seven kilometres (4.3 miles) northeast of Tokyo Station. Sumida Aquarium is in the Tokyo Solamachi complex. (Full article...)
Image 23A kawaraban (news broadsheet) depicting the damage of the 1855 earthquake (from History of Tokyo)
Image 24Picture of the Upper Class, a c. 1794–1795 painting by Utamaro. The woman on the left is lower in class than the woman on the right, who wears more colorful clothes (from History of Tokyo)
Image 32The five-story pagoda of Kan'ei-ji, which was constructed during the reign of Tokugawa Hidetada and required the building of the Kimon (Devil's Gate) (from History of Tokyo)
Image 45A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Tokyo)
... that Paralympian Gemma Collis-McCann, who sits on wheelchair fencing's new Gender Equity Commission, has been chosen to join three men as the UK's wheelchair fencing team in Tokyo?
... that Ralph Page once called a contra dance for more than 4000 people in Tokyo, despite not knowing Japanese?