Where to Stay in Tokyo, Tokyo Prefecture

What is Tokyo known for?

Tokyo is known as the capital of Japan, a metropolis that runs from gleaming skyscrapers to the quiet of old shrines. The Shibuya scramble crossing pushes crowds across in every direction, while Meiji Jingū keeps its forest calm nearby. At its centre sits the Imperial Palace, a green remnant of old Japan.

Cherry blossoms mark the spring. Between global business and consumer streets, the city holds the whole sweep of Japanese culture, from foreign influences to the remnants of old Japan.

What are the main landmarks in Tokyo?

Tokyo's landmarks range from shrine to street corner. Meiji Jingū stands in its own forest, reached across Jingu Bashi, with the Meiji Shrine Outer Garden extending the green nearby. The Shibuya scramble crossing is a landmark in itself.

Galleries are everywhere. For art, the city holds the Nezu Museum, the Yayoi Kusama Museum, the Ōta Memorial Museum of Art, the Sompo Museum of Art, and the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum, with Bunkamura adding stages and galleries in Shibuya. At the heart of it all sits the Imperial Palace.

What is the history of Tokyo?

Tokyo's history as the capital of Japan runs from 1868. In that year the city took its place as the country's capital, the seat around which modern Japan would organise itself. The Imperial Palace stands at the centre as the enduring symbol of that role.

Around it the modern capital took shape. Much older layers survive beneath the modern surface, the remnants of the capital of old Japan. The city carries the whole sweep of Japanese history and culture in one place.

Old and new sit close. From that founding the capital grew into a vast metropolis, the core of the Tokyo Metropolis, or 東京都, and of the wider Greater Tokyo Area. Its growth pulled in foreign influences, global business, and consumer culture, layering them over the older city.

None of it erased what came before. Landmarks like Meiji Jingū took their place among the surrounding streets, a shrine set in forest within the capital. The Shibuya scramble crossing belongs to that later, busier Tokyo.

The city's past reads as one long accumulation, with each era left standing beside the next.

Where is Tokyo?

Tokyo spreads across the heart of the Greater Tokyo Area as the capital of Japan. The built-up city runs on and on, one district giving way to the next with little open ground between them. Green is the exception.

The forest around Meiji Jingū and the grounds of the Imperial Palace break the density at the centre, while quarters like Shibuya pack it back in around them.

What is the climate of Tokyo?

Tokyo has a temperate climate, with warm, humid summers and cool, drier winters. Spring brings the cherry blossoms that mark the city's calendar, a short, well-watched season across its parks and shrine grounds. Summers turn sticky.

Heat and humidity settle over the capital through the warm months, easing into the mild, clear weather that follows the blossom season around Meiji Jingū and the wider Greater Tokyo Area.

How do you get to Tokyo?

Tokyo is the main way into Japan. As the capital, it draws the country's principal air and rail connections, and the Greater Tokyo Area binds it to the surrounding prefectures by dense lines of transport. Most trips through Japan pass this way.

Within the city, transit knits the quarters together, so reaching Shibuya, Meiji Jingū, or the Imperial Palace from an arrival point is quick.