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.
The LGBT community in Tokyo is one of the largest in Asia. While Japan does not assign as much moral or social weight to sexuality as in the West, it is still difficult for Japanese people to come out in society as being LGBT; the community reportedly experiences homophobia even amongst those in the community. Only 5% of Japanese people report they know somebody who is LGBT.
There is a community in Japan called Stonewall that aims to serve the LGBT community, with many local chapters spread across Japan. Stonewall provides educational awareness, useful information, communicative online platforms, and fellowship opportunities. (Full article...)
Illuminated facade of a restaurant serving traditional food and showing baskets of fresh vegetables at the entrance, Yūrakuchō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.
WikiProjects
You are invited to participate in the Tokyo task force, a task force dedicated to developing and improving articles about the Tokyo metropolis, including the Special wards of Tokyo, West Tokyo, and the islands.
General images
The following are images from various Tokyo-related articles on Wikipedia.
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 3Picture 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 13The 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 53A scene from the Tokugawa Seiseiroku, showing an aspect of the sankin-kōtai system: the festive attendance day of daimyo at Edo Castle (from History of Tokyo)
... that the women's wheelchair race at the 2021 Tokyo Marathon featured just two competitors?
... that Ralph Page once called a contra dance for more than 4000 people in Tokyo, despite not knowing Japanese?
... 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 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 pianist Fujita Haruko, one of the first 19 female students enrolled at the University of Tokyo, was taught by Leo Sirota, who was once called the "god of piano"?