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 recognising 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.
Shuto Expressway (首都高速道路, Shuto Kōsoku-dōro, lit. "Metropolitan Expressway", where shuto also means "capital city") is a network of toll expressways in the Greater Tokyo Area of Japan. It is operated and maintained by the Metropolitan Expressway Company Limited (首都高速道路株式会社, Shuto Kōsoku-dōro Kabushiki-gaisha).
Most routes are grade-separated (elevated roads or tunnels) and central routes have many sharp curves and multi-lane merges that require caution to drive safely. The speed limit is 60 km/h on most routes, but 80 km/h on the Bayshore Route, and 50 km/h on the Inner Circular Route. (Full article...)
Image 2A 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)
Image 5The 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 47Picture 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)
... that episodes of the TV Tokyo late-night show Nogizaka Under Construction are uploaded to YouTube shortly after broadcast, which is considered unusual in Japanese media?
... that the first line to STU48's "Hana wa Dare no Mono?", which imagines a world without borders, is often misheard as wishing for a world without 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?