Japan · Tokyo Prefecture · Katsushika
Aoto, Katsushika — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Aoto is a district of Katsushika ward in Tokyo whose name records a landing place, written Aotsu or Oto in old documents and long pronounced Oto.
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Where to stay in Aoto
Where the beds are, and what that means for the visit.
Two big roads cross at the northern edge. National route 6 runs east to west and the Kanpachi ring road north to south, meeting at the Aoto eight-chome junction, which is known for its traffic. Aoto station sits at the southern end.
It is the junction where the Keisei main line to Ueno divides from the Keisei Oshiage line toward Asakusa and Haneda, and a shopping mall occupies the lowest floor. Shops are scattered rather than gathered.
About Aoto
What are the main landmarks in Aoto?
Kasai castle stood in the seventh chome. Its centre is now under the Kanpachi ring road, and what was left became the Gotenyama park and the Kasai castle site park. Tradition puts a famous judge here.
The castle site is said to have been the residence of Aoto Fujitsuna, a member of the Kamakura shogunate's board of enquiry, though the truth of it is not settled, and the station is written with his characters rather than the district's. Pottery says it was a centre. Large quantities of earthenware came out of the castle site, which is why the medieval district is taken to have been the heart of the Kasai area.
What is the history of Aoto?
A landing place gave Aoto its name. The character for the second syllable means a ferry, a wharf or a water gate, as it does in Edo, Mito, Okudo, Matsudo and Noborito, so this ground once held a large harbour. A record survives from 1288.
Aoto Jiro Shigemochi, who held the land, is recorded visiting Chuson-ji at Hiraizumi as the deputy of the Kasai clan. The castle changed hands through the wars. Kasai castle served as a subsidiary of the Yamanouchi Uesugi and later the Later Hojo in the Sengoku period, and in the Edo period it became a hawking lodge for three Tokugawa shoguns before being pulled down for timber to rebuild Edo castle after the Meireki fire.
Villages merged in 1889. Aoto joined Kameari, Sunahara and Kamichiba to form Kamboku village, though the village office stood in Kameari, and Katsushika ward was created in 1932 with Aoto town inside it. The estate made the modern district.
The housing corporation advertised for tenants of the Aoto estate in July 1956, and the address reform of 1967 reorganised the ground into the eight chome it has now.
Where is Aoto?
Aoto lies in the middle of Katsushika ward in Tokyo on the west bank of the Nakagawa, with Kameari to the north, Tateishi to the south, Takasago across the river to the east and Shiratori to the west.
More areas in Katsushika
Updated September 2026