Greater Tokyo Area

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The Greater Tokyo Area is a large metropolitan area in Japan consisting of most of the prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Tokyo (at the center). In Japanese, it is referred to as various terms, including the , , , and others.

It is the world's most populous metropolitan area (35,197,000 at 2005 estimate), covering an area of approximately 13,500 km² (5,200 mi²). It is the second largest in the world in terms of built-up or urban function landmass at 7,800 km² (3,000 mi²). (Only the urban area surrounding New York City at 8,700 km² is larger). It has 35 cities with 200,000 people or more, 21 cities with at least 300,000 people, and 10 with over 500,000 people. It is first in the world in terms of railed transit usage, with 22 million passengers using rail as their primary means of travel daily on its 136 predominantly heavy rail lines.

Definition

Like most metropolitan areas, the actual population size depends on definition. There are various different definitions used for what is commonly known as Greater Tokyo Area.

The , a southern part of the Kantō region, including the aforementioned one metropolis (Tokyo) and three prefectures (Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama) with the populations (as of 2008) of 34.9 million.
The is a potentially ambiguous term. Informally, it may mean the definition above, or the area without Saitama Prefecture. Formally, it may mean the South Kantō Block, which is not the Greater Tokyo Area, but a proportional representation block of the national election, comprised of Kanagawa, Chiba, and Yamanashi Prefectures.
The is one of the two definitions the Japan Statistics Bureau uses. It consists of all municipalities that have at least 1.5% of their population aged 15 and above commuting to a designated city (Yokohama, Kawasaki, Chiba, and Saitama) or the 23 special wards. Before Saitama became a designated city in 2001, the area was called . As of 2000, the area has the populations of 34.6 million.
The is another definition by the Japan Statistics Bureau. It is the set of municipalities that are completely or mostly within 50 and 70 kilometres of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings in Shinjuku, with populations (as of 2000) of 30,724,000 and 34,394,000 respectively.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Employment Area, which is also called in Japanese, is the area defined by the Center for Spatial Information Service, the University of Tokyo. It consists of all municipalities that have at least 10% of their population commuting to 23 special wards, with the populations (as of 2000) of 31.7 million.
In informal occasions, the term often means Greater Tokyo Area. Officially, the term refers to a much larger area, namely the whole Kantō region and Yamanashi Prefecture.

The Greater Tokyo Area continues to increase its population and density despite a demographic decline nationwide.　It should be noted that Tokyo as a metropolis includes some 394 km of islands (Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands), as well as some mountainous areas to the far east, which are not part of Greater Tokyo, but have comparatively very small population.

Various definitions of Tokyo/Kantō

Cities

(populations listed for those over 300,000)

Cities within Tokyo

Tokyo is legally classified as a , a word which translates as "metropolis," and is treated as one of the forty-seven prefectures of Japan. It is not administered as a single city.

Eastern Tokyo Metropolis

Central Tokyo, situated in the eastern portion of Tokyo Metropolis, was once incorporated as Tokyo City, which was dismantled during World War II. Its subdivisions have been reclassified as . The twenty three special wards currently have the legal status of cities, with individual mayors and city councils, and call themselves "cities" in English. However, when listing Japan's largest cities, Tokyo's twenty three wards are often counted as one city. See: Special wards of Tokyo

Western Tokyo Metropolis

Western Tokyo, known as the Tama Area (Tama-chiiki 多摩地域) comprises a number of municipalities, including these suburban cities:

Koganei

Machida (pop over 410,000)

Cities outside Tokyo

The core cities of the Greater Tokyo Area outside Tokyo Metropolis are:

Chiba (population 940,000)
Kawasaki (population 1.36 million)
Saitama (population 1.19 million)
Yokohama (population 3.62 million)

The other cities in Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama Prefectures are:

Kashiwa (pop 380,000)

Kasukabe

Katsuura

Kawagoe (pop 330,000)

Kawaguchi (pop 500,000)

Koshigaya (population 318,000)

Kōnosu

Kuki

Kumagaya

Matsudo (pop 480,000)

Sagamihara (pop 700,000)

Tokorozawa (pop 338,000)

Yokosuka (pop 420,000)

source: stat.go.jp census 2005

Additional cities

In the major metropolitan area (MMA) definition used by the Japanese Statistics Bureau, the following cities in Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Yamanashi, and Shizuoka Prefectures are included:

Yamanashi Prefecture

Border areas

Greater Tokyo is bordered by metropolitan areas of Numazu-Atami (approx. 500,000) to the southwest, Maebashi-Takasaki-Ōta-Ashikaga (approx. 1,500,000 people) on the northwest, and Greater Utsunomiya (approx. 800,000) to the north. If these areas are included, Greater Tokyo's population would be around 38-39 million.

Geography

At the centre of the main urban area (approximately the first 10km from Tokyo Station) are the 23 special wards, formerly treated as a single city but now governed as separate municipalities, and containing many major commercial centres such as Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro and Ginza. Around the 23 special wards are a multitude of suburban cities which merge seamlessly into each other to form a continuous built up area, circumnavigated by the heavily-travelled Route 16 which forms a (broken) loop about 40km from central Tokyo. Situated along the loop are the major cities of Yokohama (to the south of Tokyo), Hachiōji (to the west), Ōmiya (now part of Saitama City, to the north), and Chiba (to the east). Within the Route 16 loop, the coastline of Tokyo Bay is heavily industrialised, with the Keihin Industrial Area stretching from Tokyo down to Yokohama, and the Keiyō Industrial Area from Tokyo eastwards to Chiba. Along the periphery of the main urban area are numerous new suburban housing developments such as the Tama New Town. The landscape is relatively flat compared to most of Japan, most of it comprising low hills.

Outside the Route 16 loop the landscape becomes more rural. To the south is an area known as Shōnan comprising various cities and towns along the coast of Sagami Bay, with their long beaches comprising black volcanic sand, and to the west the area is mountainous.

Many rivers run through the area, the major ones being Arakawa and Tama River.

Transportation

Air

The Greater Tokyo Area has two major airports, Tokyo International Airport (chiefly domestic) and Narita International Airport (chiefly international). Minor facilities include Chōfu and Honda Airports. Tokyo Heliport serves helicopter traffic, including police, fire, and news. Various military facilities handle air traffic: Naval Air Facility Atsugi (United States Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force), Hyakuri Airfield (Japan Air Self-Defense Force), Yokota Air Base (United States Air Force), and Camp Zama (United States Army). Hyakuri is being developed for civil aviation with plans for service to begin in 2009; it will be called Ibaraki Airport.

Rail

Greater Tokyo has an extensive railway network comprising monorails, commuter rails, subways, private lines, trams, and so forth. There are around 136 individual rail lines in the Greater Tokyo Area, and between 1,000 to 1,200 railway stations depending on one's definition of the area, most designed for heavy use, usually long enough to accommodate 10-car trains. Major stations are designed to accommodate hundreds of thousands of passengers at any given time, with miles of connecting tunnels linking vast department stores and corporate offices. Tokyo Station has underground connections that stretch well over 4 kilometers, and Shinjuku Station has well over 200 exits. Greater Tokyo's Railway Network is easily considered the world's largest in terms of both daily passenger throughput with a daily trips of over 40 million (20 million different passengers) as well as physical extent with approximately 2,578 kilometers of track. Some 57 percent of all Greater Tokyo residents used rail as their primary means of transport in 2001.

JR East and many other carriers crisscross the region with a network of rail lines. (See this map showing the Suica/PASMO accepting area that roughly corresponds with Greater Tokyo.) The most important carriers include Keihin Kyūkō Electric Railway (Keikyū), Keisei Electric Railway, Keiō Electric Railway, Odakyū Electric Railway, Seibu Railway, Tōbu Railway, and Tōkyū Corporation. In addition to Tokyo's two subway systems (Tokyo Metro and Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation (Toei and Toden lines), Yokohama operates three lines. The Tokyo Monorail provides service to Haneda Airport and other destinations.

Other

The Shuto Expressway system connects other national expressways in the capital region.

Tokyo and Yokohama are major commercial seaports, and both the Maritime Self-Defense Force and United States Navy maintain naval bases at Yokosuka.

References

External links

Urban Employment Areas in Japan (2000)

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Last updated on Saturday February 23, 2008 at 22:47:40 PST (GMT -0800)
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