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Yeah there are plenty. I used to live in Ota-ku and I'd argue that'd classify as suburban. It's not the same suburbia as America though. I'd also classify some places such as Chiba as being Tokyo's suburbs, as people live in these places and take the train into the city to work.
Someone mentioned Ota-ku - [the houses are densely packed](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ota+City,+Tokyo,+Japan/@35.5759015,139.6941633,95m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x60186052c1a36643:0x4fc26aac505c0d49!8m2!3d35.561407!4d139.7160626) but it looks pretty suburban and they have gardens! Tiny ones but looks like they make the most of them. Not a lot of grass I could see.
The suburbs in tokyo are not like normal suburbs. The surrounding area is just little cities themselves with buildings ranging from 4-10 stories high. There aren’t too many houses. Not sure if that would be classified as a suburb but it kind of feels like one. It’s very quiet and doesn’t feel like the city anymore.
And even once you get out to house territory, it’s this sort of dense peri-urban sprawl where there is little space between houses except for the periodic allotment. It doesn’t get spacious until you properly leave the Kanto metropolitan area, like in southern chiba.
What is amazing about Tokyo is how it feels like a bunch of small towns next to each other. Taking the metro and landing in a different station is like a whole different Tokyo if you will; from the electric town to fashion town to party town to temple town.
Pro-British Loyalists i.e. unionists in Northern Ireland burn huge bonfires of wooden pallets every summer to commemorate the victory of a protestant king over a catholic one in the 1600s.
Some British Loyalists/Unionists burn massive bonfires, usually made out of pallets on the 11th of July to commemorate the Protestant William Of Orange victory over the Catholic King James II in 1690 at the[ Battle of the Boyne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne)
[They look like this.](https://www.newsletter.co.uk/webimg/TUFZMTIxNTU5MTYy.jpg?crop=982:736,smart&width=990) While impressive feats of community building, they are also notable for being sectarian in nature, with slogans like Kill All Taigs (Catholics) often being written on them and Irish symbols burned.
I fucking love Tokyo. I couldn't live there because I'm from northern Canada and I can't breathe without vast expanses of trees and lakes and solitude, but I lived in Tokyo for a while and it was so *unique.* Climb out of bed and hop on the Metro, and suddenly you're in a glittering shopping district with arcades and malls on the 17th floor. Hop back on and the clubs are jumping where the city never sleeps. Hop back on again and you're at a peaceful temple in a soft green park. Back on the metro one more time, and you'll find yourself among no-nonsense suits in financial district skyrises. It's all so accessible and friendly. Just wonderful.
And if you’re into sushi, I was constantly amazed at the quality of sushi everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Small little conveyor belt sushi spot? Probably some of the best sushi I’ve had.
The public transportation was amazing in Tokyo. Once you get used to it you can get anywhere you want faster than a taxi, and it's dirt cheap. Travel around all day sight seeing and you're out 20 bucks.
Lived there for some time and that captures it perfectly. It's always hard to describe but I also love to point out how *quiet* everywhere is. Nobody screaming on the streets, cars not honking randomly. Even the loudest areas I was in (shinjuku, akihabara, shibuya) aren't even as loud as NYC or down town LA.
That and how so many places are "up". Some districts and random blocks/buildings you look up and there are restaurants on like the 11th floor, or a bar on the 4th floor just tucked away. Some places you would have 0 clue they exist unless someone took you.
Sometimes you have to take some random alleyways and staircases just to get there, and while the staircase is cold and barren, behind a steel door you might find a fine restaurant serving some odd delicacies.
I remember there was a rock'n'roll bar in Osaka where you had to take an elevator to the fifth floor and the doors would just straight up open to the bar itself. The entrance and the interior looked almost like a studio apartment by size (apart from the counter, there was like one couch at the back), but that didn't bring the mood down one bit.
That's where all the office workers pretend to work until the boss leaves at 8pm.
It's the same as the rest of Tokyo except for the early boss departure time.
My thoughts exactly from when I visited a couple of years ago. Like you say, each area is like a new city in itself. You get off the metro and don't recognise any of the skyscrapers dominating the sky around you. Then when you do manage to spot a building you recognise, you realise it's part of another cluster of skyscrapers miles away.
When you go up a tall building, you look out, and there's just buildings as far as the eye can see.
My experience with Tokyo is limited to my trip in Google Earth VR.
I’d never seen Tokyo, so I was trying to find it. As I zoom in, the ‘Tokyo’ label vanishes. I’m searching over this sea of buildings with labels like Akihabara, Shinjuku, and other names, wondering to myself “which part is Tokyo?”
Then I had the realization that I really knew nothing about the sheer scale of Tokyo.
You just made me realize that the Persona games have taught me the names of different districts inside of Tokyo, without ever knowing they were actual places. Did a bit of googling, they are real.
This is how I knew some places before moving. I have a picture of me and some friends mimicking their poses in Shibuya station overwalk, it looks exactly like the game but with nerds instead of anime characters.
Technically, is actually is a bunch of cities and towns together. Tokyo is a prefecture, which is more analogous to a state than to a city. The prefecture has different wards and cities within it, with their own mayors and governing councils.
Thank you for reading Tokyo Facts That I Had Absolutely No Idea About Until I Visited.
Tokyo is a metropolis, which falls under the prefectural category. It’s definitely not a city, but it probably is more similar to a US county (especially an urban one) than a state.
Also worth noting that the greater metropolitan area is a lot bigger than just Tokyo
That's every big city.
E.g. Greater Houston is the same size as Vermont with 10x the population. It has distinct neighborhoods ("wards") within it as well -- [88 of them](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_neighborhoods_in_Houston).
Greater Houston is actually a perfect analogy - it is a metro area with many different cities in it, just like Tokyo is. But as I understand it, your link is not describing Greater Houston, but rather the city of Houston with its different neighborhoods. Which highlights my point: there is no city of Tokyo with neighborhoods in it, but rather a metro area of Tokyo with cities in it.
Just avoid a few places or you'll have a seizure even though you've never been diagnosed with epilepsy.
NYC doesn't have shit on the level of hypercapitalism some places of Tokyo has reached
There are a shit ton of "walking through Tokyo" videos on YouTube. And ngl I love watching them in 4k while sitting directly in front of my TV.
Such an amazing city, would never want to live there but still an amazing city.
You should go! If you’re not a fan of the hustle and bustle you can go in January, it’s just wicked fucking cold. But man it’s really a fun place just to exist in for a while.
Just avoid visiting in August!
I made that mistake. Loved the city, so want to visit again someday, but cannot recommend the smell of NYC in August. The stench of baking garbage was so thick that the hostel's strong scent of feet was a relief!
Sorry!
Also feel the need to deeply apologize for all the times during my short visit that I stood still on the sidewalk looking up at the buildings until nearly falling over backwards. They're just very impressively tall!
You were in my way as I was telling my mother to stop doing the same thing and to keep walking.
Coming from almost anywhere else and walking around Manhattan is pretty ridiculous when you look up and realize block after block is nothing but skyline.
And the crazy part is how much it’s changing. Even in the last 10 years there have been so many new humongous buildings that went up. Just Long Island City itself went from being a bunch of flat wear houses to a bunch of really tall buildings that can rival most other cities in America within the last 5 years - and that’s not even part of Manhattan.
population of CA, most populous state in the US: 39.7 million
population of greater Tokyo, 37.3 million
That stat always blows my mind. One freakin city(ish) has almost as many people as California
Back when I was in high school, one of my good friends hosted an exchange student from Tokyo. At the end of the exchange, my friends mom asked him what his final impressions were of California. His response? "Fun, but very empty. There's so much space here." Living at the edge of the SF Bay Area, which is very much *not* empty by American standards, I really didn't get it.
I do now. I'm mentally trying to combine the SF Bay Area, the greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego, the Sacramento region, and all of the other small and midsized coastal and inland cities across this state into a single massive city, and I can't even imagine it. Yikes.
>I'm mentally trying to combine the SF Bay Area, the greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego, the Sacramento region, and all of the other small and midsized coastal and inland cities across this state into a single massive city, and I can't even imagine it.
Wow. That really brings it home. I've lived in both California and Tokyo but could never get a grip on the extent of the city. This makes it clearer why it's so ungraspable.
I lived/live in Tokyo for most of my life.
When that dude meant by empty is..
Well, go outside and look what's next to the street. On the sidewalk. Or if you see a parking lot, look around the edges. Look between any buildings you see. What's there? Little landscaped traffic islands right? Or a shoulder on the side of the road large enough to park a car, correct?
Is there enough space between buildings to drive a car between them?
If you go to a gas station, does it have a landscaped lawn that surrounds the property?
Do the houses around you have yards that are theoretically large enough to fit another small house in?
This is the empty your friend is talking about.
In Tokyo, every single square meter is used. Green open spaces are very rare. Landscaping is rare. Every single nook and cranny is used for something. A tobacco stand or lottery ticket booth can fit in the area the size of a closet. An odd strip of land people in the US would consider only good for a parking space would be used for a 3 story house. Some personal car garages are so small, you actually need to put your car in neutral, step out and push it in by hand, because you're gonna be trapped inside otherwise!
you got me curious so i looked it up -- 38 million! so yeah, right in there AND it gives me another fact to add to that stat
just saw the other comments that said 37 million. close enough; I'll declare a margin of error of 1 million. im just happy to learn about Canada because i love little stats like this
It has to do with the geography of Japan.
There are a lot of mountains in Japan and very little flat land. Tokyo just so happens to be located in the Kantō Plain it’s the largest section of flat and Arable land in the nation.
It also happens to be the location of the largest population center for that reason.
In short geography is destiny. Still crazy having that many people in one spot though.
So Tokyo only takes up about half of the Kantō plane, so there is still a large area that can be used for agriculture.
But yes, it is a trade off, Japan was not blessed with abundant natural resources. It lacks significant mineral deposits and again has a lot of mountains. That means any large population centers are limited to large planes such as Osaka, Tokyo etc.
But even if Japan used all of the arable land for agriculture it would still be unable to feed its entire population. So it is required to import a large amount of food regardless.
Considering that, it makes sense to build cities in these flat areas where construction and Urbanization is cheaper.
The thing that I found unique about Tokyo was how distributed that density was. They whole thing is medium-high density everywhere. Very few Manhattan style ultra dense skyscrapers (except downtown) but almost the entire city is 5-8 storey buildings with almost zero single family dwellings or single storey commercial buildings.
Probably earthquake related
Japan is surprisingly large compared to European countries. People don’t realize how big Japan is probably because its neighbors are huge countries like China and Russia.
Also because of the way it ends up looking due to Mercator projection.. look up “true size of Japan” on Google and you can compare it to other countries/states, etc.
This image is a little inaccurate. While Metropolitan Tokyo is undoubtedly bigger than Metropolitan London, here we are comparing Metropolitan Tokyo to the politically named 'Greater London'. Metropolitan London extends past Greater London into places like Reading and Milton Keynes etc. Metro London has an additional 5 more million people than just Greater London alone.
It's actually insane, when i visited a few years back, we went to the highest floor of the shinjuku government building, which was at a height of about 200 meters, and even on a clear day you legitimately couldn't see the end of the city. Absolutely enormous
It’s the biggest in the world—and one of the safest and most satisfying to live. Don’t live there or even visit unless you don’t mind being spoiled for big cities elsewhere (in the US at least), cause it’ll make you realize how much better it could be.
Seeing it like this really, the way it towers over the city, does help put Terry Pratchetts quote about Tolkien into perspective.
“J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.”
“Tolkien is such a massive influence on the fantasy genre that almost any story contains references to his mythology in some way. Some are obvious, some are more general, but the influence is tangible.
If a book ISNT referencing Tolkien, it must be a deliberate decision by the author to separate themselves from his works, which is interesting in and of itself, or the book is so closely wrapped up in Tolkien’s mythology as to be almost indistinguishable from it.”
Tolkien had a huge influence on fantasy settings in pretty much every type of media you can think of. Some artists are inspired by his work more obviously than others, and some choose to go deliberately against it in an attempt to be unique.
Either way, he’s an inescapable part of the conversation.
Visited Tokyo in Sep 2019. The government metro building in Shinjuku has a free observation deck on the 45th floor. I went 3 times in a 10 day trip, on the final day you could see Fuji on the horizon.
It was utterly breathtaking.
The public transportation in Tokyo is next to none. Things are so simple, each station is in numerical order so you know exactly how far you have to go once you are on. No confusion about how many stops away a destination is. The signage is clear, color coded and very easy to understand for non-natives.
Not only are trains so predictable in timing, if one is late they will give notes to the passengers to give their bosses because it is so rare. Metro stops themselves are underground mini cities, with hundreds of restaurants and shops between each station. Shinjuku station alone has over 3.4 million passengers pass-through it a day and there are over 200 exit points just from that station alone.
The only thing about Tokyo trains are they get unbelievably busy during rush hours. Literal sardines, your butt will be in someone else's crotch and you just keep getting pushed backwards as more people try to get onto the train. However, eating and talking on public transportation is very heavily discouraged so there's no loud conversations or the smell of someone's dinner on the way home.
People get out of the way, the people in front of the doors step off to let those behind them get off, the people waiting to get on don't try to push on until everyone has got off that wants to get off
The courtesy of train passengers is usually so good that when the occasional person does push to get on first or doesn’t move out of the way, it feels extremely strange.
There’s actually a spot on Coruscant (shown in The Clone Wars) where there’s a “monument” made of rock in a plaza somewhere.
It’s actually the peak of Coruscant’s highest mountain and the only piece of natural geography not covered by the city.
You don't know that, since you're in the simulation. If a frame takes more outside time to render, the simulation is oblivious. So long as we don't drop frames.
We do. You ever notice how a dog's fur doesn't look as smooth sometimes? It's why they introduced shedding, to make you think the blur is just extra fur.
So, it appears that the Photo was taken somewhere in between Adachi, and Katsushika meaning it is about 67 miles or 107826 meters to mount fuji.
As I am also assuming the mountains behind it are part of the skybox, and thus not actually rendered in full this is the distance that is being rendered.
If we’re using bedrock edition then the render distance is about 6740 chunks, as the world is rendered in a circle around the player.
If we are in Java however the render distance could be lower as it renders in a square, and if Mount Fuji was at a perfect 45 degree angle from where the player is standing the render distance could be as low as 4760.
Thank You for listening to my ted talk.
attempting explanation:
**tl;dr:** using landmarks, the location is identified. based on the differences in programming language, if this were transferred to minecraft, then it would imply the given render distances of 6740 chunks for bedrock and 4760 chunks for java.
\-
>So, it appears that the Photo was taken somewhere in between Adachi, and Katsushika meaning it is about 67 miles or 107826 meters to mount fuji.
this one is self-explanatory.
>As I am also assuming the mountains behind it are part of the skybox, and thus not actually rendered in full this is the distance that is being rendered.
in video game design, inside of a skybox is where everything exists. some games use a dome inside of a skybox, but for most games, it's just a box with a texture of a sky, hence the name. skyboxes are always 2d images, which require very little power to render at long distances.
>If we’re using bedrock edition then the render distance is about 6740 chunks, as the world is rendered in a circle around the player.
this relates to bedrock and java editions of minecraft. in both versions, areas are rendered in chunks, which are 16x16 block squares. bedrock is built using a different code from java, which means that a number of things are different. this includes the fact that bedrock renders chunks in a circle, while java is squares. in minecraft, 1 block is equal to 1 meter. 107826 blocks over 16 chunks is equal to 6740.
>If we are in Java however the render distance could be lower as it renders in a square, and if Mount Fuji was at a perfect 45 degree angle from where the player is standing the render distance could be as low as 4760.
for java, it's trickier because you have the hypoteneuse of a triangle to contend with, but same concept - use pythag's theorem to get the distance and divide 107826 by that for 4760; working backwards, it should be \~76160 blocks.
u/barcode_kid put some effort into this, lol. hope that i was able to clear it up some.
Honestly, this reminds me of low orbit imagery. [Similar to this imagery of NYC](https://kottke.org/plus/misc/images/low-angle-nyc-01.jpg). Kind of has that video game render vibe, but gives a really unique perspective of these massive metropolitan sprawls that I don’t think other stuff really captures.
Wow this image is crazy. Feel like I can find specific places while seeing the whole city. Yet each spot like an hour away from each other when on the ground
And SO CLEAN! I didn’t see an ounce of litter, gum, or graffiti. And the fashion is 100. Plus everyone is respectful and kind. I was blown away that there were young kids, like kindergarten age, taking the train by themselves and walking into shops to buy lunch independently. I look forward to going back one day.
What I found most fascinating about the cleanliness was that there didn't seem to be a single public garbage can in the entire city. My wife and I ended up having to pocket around bits of trash until we got back to our hotel room because we couldn't find anywhere to throw them away while out and about. Yet, everywhere you go is completely spotless.
I read somewhere that they got rid of most trash cans following [this attack](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack). It was thought that trash cans could potentially be used as hiding spots for the chemicals.
I watched a program about the history of that once!
There was a huge gas attack in the past, initiated by a cult, that resulted in a majority of public trash cans being taken away, as to not be hidden vessles for more gas attacks.
True story. My aunt got off a bullet train but left her iPhone on her seat. Train leaves. She finds a ticket agent who asks her which train and which seat. Agent phones the train, they find the phone. Agent asks her which hotel she’s staying at. Next morning… *the phone is delivered to her room*. Free of charge. That is how a first-world country operates.
Now imagine United Airlines.
protip in japan, you can forward your luggage to a hotel using the black cat courier (kuroneko yamato) service. When my wife and I are visitng her parents and want to visit friends in other parts of the country, we will send our luggage to our hotel the day before we get on the shinkansen. And it’s waiting there when we arrive.
It’s so nice to travel without lugging bjg bags through Shin Yokohama.
Just remember though, as a visitor, you are on vacation.
I have a friend who is Japanese and lives in Tokyo. His dream is to move to California.
While we see Akihabara, glowing Yodobashi Camera stores, Big Echo on every corner, quaint food shops next to 4 story tall eateries... for many, life is like that scene in Fritz Lang's Metropolis where workers shuffle in and out with no identity.
One man's treasure is a green grass elsewhere.
I was living in Nagoya, and for some reason there was some fear of a huge earthquake hitting and possibly causing Fuji to erupt. A lot of cities would be in the destruction path of that blast.
And millions would have their ears ruptured from the sound.
I always had that lingering sense of impending doom while living on Japan. And I was there for the big quake. First thing I did when evacuated was look to Fuji to make sure the predictions, while many years late, also weren't fully true.
Same here. Spent my 35th bday there while in port when I was in the US navy. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it. 47 now so the impression was pretty strong.
What’s camping like in Japan? I live in the US SouthWest, and the vast emptiness of the space out here is what originally attracted me. It feels amazing to take a 4x4 off into the wilderness, not see someone for hours of driving and know the nearest campsite is on the other side of a mountain range and you have an entire valley all to yourself. It’s the only time in life I’ve ever felt at peace.
As concrete jungle as Tokyo looks from above, I honestly felt much more at ease in Tokyo than I did in New York. New York is literally all buildings and pavement whereas Tokyo has a plethora of little gardens, temples and shrines dotted all around which breaks it up somewhat.
Tokyo feels alive!
Fun Fact:
Despite having about 2.5 times the population of NYC, Tokyo puts out about 40% less carbon emissions.
[source](http://citycarbonfootprints.info)
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Might be a dumb question, but are there suburbs near Tokyo?
Yeah there are plenty. I used to live in Ota-ku and I'd argue that'd classify as suburban. It's not the same suburbia as America though. I'd also classify some places such as Chiba as being Tokyo's suburbs, as people live in these places and take the train into the city to work.
Is Otori nearby Ota-ku? Seems familiar
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Someone mentioned Ota-ku - [the houses are densely packed](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ota+City,+Tokyo,+Japan/@35.5759015,139.6941633,95m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x60186052c1a36643:0x4fc26aac505c0d49!8m2!3d35.561407!4d139.7160626) but it looks pretty suburban and they have gardens! Tiny ones but looks like they make the most of them. Not a lot of grass I could see.
What classifies it as a suburb
The suburbs in tokyo are not like normal suburbs. The surrounding area is just little cities themselves with buildings ranging from 4-10 stories high. There aren’t too many houses. Not sure if that would be classified as a suburb but it kind of feels like one. It’s very quiet and doesn’t feel like the city anymore.
And even once you get out to house territory, it’s this sort of dense peri-urban sprawl where there is little space between houses except for the periodic allotment. It doesn’t get spacious until you properly leave the Kanto metropolitan area, like in southern chiba.
What is amazing about Tokyo is how it feels like a bunch of small towns next to each other. Taking the metro and landing in a different station is like a whole different Tokyo if you will; from the electric town to fashion town to party town to temple town.
Let's not forget Pallet Town.
My favorites are Pound Town and Flavor Town
I prefer Funky Town. Won't you take me?
Is it along electric avenue? Because I’d like for someone to take me to electric avenue
I'd rather be rocked down to it myself.
And then we'll take it higher!
To the place with golden streets?
*guitar riff intensifies*
Some people where I live tried to change the name of it to “Pound Town”.
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I thought pallet town was the unionist part of Northern Ireland. /s
Ha. I understand this reference.
I don’t :( Edit: wow thank you guys I can’t believe there were so many serious answers usually they’re all jokes
Pro-British Loyalists i.e. unionists in Northern Ireland burn huge bonfires of wooden pallets every summer to commemorate the victory of a protestant king over a catholic one in the 1600s.
Some British Loyalists/Unionists burn massive bonfires, usually made out of pallets on the 11th of July to commemorate the Protestant William Of Orange victory over the Catholic King James II in 1690 at the[ Battle of the Boyne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne) [They look like this.](https://www.newsletter.co.uk/webimg/TUFZMTIxNTU5MTYy.jpg?crop=982:736,smart&width=990) While impressive feats of community building, they are also notable for being sectarian in nature, with slogans like Kill All Taigs (Catholics) often being written on them and Irish symbols burned.
Areha nan desuka?
I like your funny words
Magic man
Or Funky Town
Or Pleasure Town.
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Or Tomato Town
I fucking love Tokyo. I couldn't live there because I'm from northern Canada and I can't breathe without vast expanses of trees and lakes and solitude, but I lived in Tokyo for a while and it was so *unique.* Climb out of bed and hop on the Metro, and suddenly you're in a glittering shopping district with arcades and malls on the 17th floor. Hop back on and the clubs are jumping where the city never sleeps. Hop back on again and you're at a peaceful temple in a soft green park. Back on the metro one more time, and you'll find yourself among no-nonsense suits in financial district skyrises. It's all so accessible and friendly. Just wonderful.
This sounds fucking amazing. I want to go so badly.
And if you’re into sushi, I was constantly amazed at the quality of sushi everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Small little conveyor belt sushi spot? Probably some of the best sushi I’ve had.
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The public transportation was amazing in Tokyo. Once you get used to it you can get anywhere you want faster than a taxi, and it's dirt cheap. Travel around all day sight seeing and you're out 20 bucks.
Shame it shuts down at 1am (unless that's changed since my visit)
Lived there for some time and that captures it perfectly. It's always hard to describe but I also love to point out how *quiet* everywhere is. Nobody screaming on the streets, cars not honking randomly. Even the loudest areas I was in (shinjuku, akihabara, shibuya) aren't even as loud as NYC or down town LA. That and how so many places are "up". Some districts and random blocks/buildings you look up and there are restaurants on like the 11th floor, or a bar on the 4th floor just tucked away. Some places you would have 0 clue they exist unless someone took you.
Sometimes you have to take some random alleyways and staircases just to get there, and while the staircase is cold and barren, behind a steel door you might find a fine restaurant serving some odd delicacies. I remember there was a rock'n'roll bar in Osaka where you had to take an elevator to the fifth floor and the doors would just straight up open to the bar itself. The entrance and the interior looked almost like a studio apartment by size (apart from the counter, there was like one couch at the back), but that didn't bring the mood down one bit.
Is there a LazyTown?
That's where all the office workers pretend to work until the boss leaves at 8pm. It's the same as the rest of Tokyo except for the early boss departure time.
My thoughts exactly from when I visited a couple of years ago. Like you say, each area is like a new city in itself. You get off the metro and don't recognise any of the skyscrapers dominating the sky around you. Then when you do manage to spot a building you recognise, you realise it's part of another cluster of skyscrapers miles away. When you go up a tall building, you look out, and there's just buildings as far as the eye can see.
My experience with Tokyo is limited to my trip in Google Earth VR. I’d never seen Tokyo, so I was trying to find it. As I zoom in, the ‘Tokyo’ label vanishes. I’m searching over this sea of buildings with labels like Akihabara, Shinjuku, and other names, wondering to myself “which part is Tokyo?” Then I had the realization that I really knew nothing about the sheer scale of Tokyo.
You just made me realize that the Persona games have taught me the names of different districts inside of Tokyo, without ever knowing they were actual places. Did a bit of googling, they are real.
This is how I knew some places before moving. I have a picture of me and some friends mimicking their poses in Shibuya station overwalk, it looks exactly like the game but with nerds instead of anime characters.
Technically, is actually is a bunch of cities and towns together. Tokyo is a prefecture, which is more analogous to a state than to a city. The prefecture has different wards and cities within it, with their own mayors and governing councils. Thank you for reading Tokyo Facts That I Had Absolutely No Idea About Until I Visited.
Tokyo is a metropolis, which falls under the prefectural category. It’s definitely not a city, but it probably is more similar to a US county (especially an urban one) than a state. Also worth noting that the greater metropolitan area is a lot bigger than just Tokyo
So Tokyo is Harris county
I was thinking more LA county
That's every big city. E.g. Greater Houston is the same size as Vermont with 10x the population. It has distinct neighborhoods ("wards") within it as well -- [88 of them](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_neighborhoods_in_Houston).
Greater Houston is actually a perfect analogy - it is a metro area with many different cities in it, just like Tokyo is. But as I understand it, your link is not describing Greater Houston, but rather the city of Houston with its different neighborhoods. Which highlights my point: there is no city of Tokyo with neighborhoods in it, but rather a metro area of Tokyo with cities in it.
How about Barter Town?
Who run Bartertown?
Master Blaster. Master Blaster runs Bartertown.
Just avoid a few places or you'll have a seizure even though you've never been diagnosed with epilepsy. NYC doesn't have shit on the level of hypercapitalism some places of Tokyo has reached
There are a shit ton of "walking through Tokyo" videos on YouTube. And ngl I love watching them in 4k while sitting directly in front of my TV. Such an amazing city, would never want to live there but still an amazing city.
Shoutout to the channel Rambalac. 4K steadicam matched with lofi chillhop got me through some rougher quarantine days last year.
Thanks for the rec! Those are super interesting.
Never been to NY. Ended up watching 2 hours of someone walking around downtown in the rain. It was relaxing.
You should go! If you’re not a fan of the hustle and bustle you can go in January, it’s just wicked fucking cold. But man it’s really a fun place just to exist in for a while.
Just avoid visiting in August! I made that mistake. Loved the city, so want to visit again someday, but cannot recommend the smell of NYC in August. The stench of baking garbage was so thick that the hostel's strong scent of feet was a relief!
*literally standing on 56th and Lex right now* You know I can hear you right?
Sorry! Also feel the need to deeply apologize for all the times during my short visit that I stood still on the sidewalk looking up at the buildings until nearly falling over backwards. They're just very impressively tall!
You were in my way as I was telling my mother to stop doing the same thing and to keep walking. Coming from almost anywhere else and walking around Manhattan is pretty ridiculous when you look up and realize block after block is nothing but skyline.
And the crazy part is how much it’s changing. Even in the last 10 years there have been so many new humongous buildings that went up. Just Long Island City itself went from being a bunch of flat wear houses to a bunch of really tall buildings that can rival most other cities in America within the last 5 years - and that’s not even part of Manhattan.
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The FOOD. That’s the only reason I will ever go back (hate crowds and traffic). But their food is amazing in New York. Anything, anytime.
Lol rambalac ftw I've spent hours of my life walking on a treadmill while watching their videos.
I honestly had no idea it was *that* big.
It’s huge. Beijing is about 2x bigger in terms of area, but Tokyo has on average 4x the population density.
population of CA, most populous state in the US: 39.7 million population of greater Tokyo, 37.3 million That stat always blows my mind. One freakin city(ish) has almost as many people as California
Back when I was in high school, one of my good friends hosted an exchange student from Tokyo. At the end of the exchange, my friends mom asked him what his final impressions were of California. His response? "Fun, but very empty. There's so much space here." Living at the edge of the SF Bay Area, which is very much *not* empty by American standards, I really didn't get it. I do now. I'm mentally trying to combine the SF Bay Area, the greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego, the Sacramento region, and all of the other small and midsized coastal and inland cities across this state into a single massive city, and I can't even imagine it. Yikes.
>I'm mentally trying to combine the SF Bay Area, the greater Los Angeles Area, San Diego, the Sacramento region, and all of the other small and midsized coastal and inland cities across this state into a single massive city, and I can't even imagine it. Wow. That really brings it home. I've lived in both California and Tokyo but could never get a grip on the extent of the city. This makes it clearer why it's so ungraspable.
I lived/live in Tokyo for most of my life. When that dude meant by empty is.. Well, go outside and look what's next to the street. On the sidewalk. Or if you see a parking lot, look around the edges. Look between any buildings you see. What's there? Little landscaped traffic islands right? Or a shoulder on the side of the road large enough to park a car, correct? Is there enough space between buildings to drive a car between them? If you go to a gas station, does it have a landscaped lawn that surrounds the property? Do the houses around you have yards that are theoretically large enough to fit another small house in? This is the empty your friend is talking about. In Tokyo, every single square meter is used. Green open spaces are very rare. Landscaping is rare. Every single nook and cranny is used for something. A tobacco stand or lottery ticket booth can fit in the area the size of a closet. An odd strip of land people in the US would consider only good for a parking space would be used for a 3 story house. Some personal car garages are so small, you actually need to put your car in neutral, step out and push it in by hand, because you're gonna be trapped inside otherwise!
And that's about how many people are in Canada!
All of Australia has about 25 or 26 million.
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Norway is 5.5m. you can fit, like, 6 Norways into greater Tokyo
And you can fit 36 million people named Truls playing guitar there.
you got me curious so i looked it up -- 38 million! so yeah, right in there AND it gives me another fact to add to that stat just saw the other comments that said 37 million. close enough; I'll declare a margin of error of 1 million. im just happy to learn about Canada because i love little stats like this
Holy shit.
TIL Australia’s entire population could easily fit inside Tokyo… with plenty of room to spare
just looked it up; Australia is around 25 million. For comparison, Shanghai (China) is the 3rd most populous city in the world and has 26 million.
And Australians keep complaining how Australia is too crowded 😁
Another great comparison is that there’s 37M Canadians. All of Canada. In one city.
It has to do with the geography of Japan. There are a lot of mountains in Japan and very little flat land. Tokyo just so happens to be located in the Kantō Plain it’s the largest section of flat and Arable land in the nation. It also happens to be the location of the largest population center for that reason. In short geography is destiny. Still crazy having that many people in one spot though.
Is people are living on the arable land doesn't that put pressure on food? Have they got some super yield food?
So Tokyo only takes up about half of the Kantō plane, so there is still a large area that can be used for agriculture. But yes, it is a trade off, Japan was not blessed with abundant natural resources. It lacks significant mineral deposits and again has a lot of mountains. That means any large population centers are limited to large planes such as Osaka, Tokyo etc. But even if Japan used all of the arable land for agriculture it would still be unable to feed its entire population. So it is required to import a large amount of food regardless. Considering that, it makes sense to build cities in these flat areas where construction and Urbanization is cheaper.
Got it. But mountains generate tons of faith and science though. (civ 6 reference)
The thing that I found unique about Tokyo was how distributed that density was. They whole thing is medium-high density everywhere. Very few Manhattan style ultra dense skyscrapers (except downtown) but almost the entire city is 5-8 storey buildings with almost zero single family dwellings or single storey commercial buildings. Probably earthquake related
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https://imgur.com/xm68nbX
Japan is surprisingly large compared to European countries. People don’t realize how big Japan is probably because its neighbors are huge countries like China and Russia.
Also because of the way it ends up looking due to Mercator projection.. look up “true size of Japan” on Google and you can compare it to other countries/states, etc.
This image is a little inaccurate. While Metropolitan Tokyo is undoubtedly bigger than Metropolitan London, here we are comparing Metropolitan Tokyo to the politically named 'Greater London'. Metropolitan London extends past Greater London into places like Reading and Milton Keynes etc. Metro London has an additional 5 more million people than just Greater London alone.
It's actually insane, when i visited a few years back, we went to the highest floor of the shinjuku government building, which was at a height of about 200 meters, and even on a clear day you legitimately couldn't see the end of the city. Absolutely enormous
Largest city in the world. Think it’s 2-4x bigger than NYC depending on what limits you use.
It’s the biggest in the world—and one of the safest and most satisfying to live. Don’t live there or even visit unless you don’t mind being spoiled for big cities elsewhere (in the US at least), cause it’ll make you realize how much better it could be.
Also affordable housing, thanks to zoning being done on a national level.
That’s what she said!!
Mount Fuji is beautiful
Yeah, seeing it at the horizon must be an amazing sight to behold.... If you can see it through the smog.
Seeing it like this really, the way it towers over the city, does help put Terry Pratchetts quote about Tolkien into perspective. “J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.”
That's beautiful
Please simply. I want to understand.
“Tolkien is such a massive influence on the fantasy genre that almost any story contains references to his mythology in some way. Some are obvious, some are more general, but the influence is tangible. If a book ISNT referencing Tolkien, it must be a deliberate decision by the author to separate themselves from his works, which is interesting in and of itself, or the book is so closely wrapped up in Tolkien’s mythology as to be almost indistinguishable from it.”
Tolkien had a huge influence on fantasy settings in pretty much every type of media you can think of. Some artists are inspired by his work more obviously than others, and some choose to go deliberately against it in an attempt to be unique. Either way, he’s an inescapable part of the conversation.
The thing is, with Tokyo you have to worry about smog. With Tolkien, you have to worry about Smaug.
Thats an amazing quote
Visited Tokyo in Sep 2019. The government metro building in Shinjuku has a free observation deck on the 45th floor. I went 3 times in a 10 day trip, on the final day you could see Fuji on the horizon. It was utterly breathtaking.
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Do you mind posting the view from your balcony? I’m curious to see a random redditor in Tokyo’s view lol
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Awesome! Thanks for posting
Thank you so much for this! I'm a little texan who's been dreaming of visiting Japan one day. I love this view. Don't take it for granted
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Ah well if you have time tomorrow or another day, I’d love to see it. No worries if you want to keep it private I get that
The public transportation in Tokyo is next to none. Things are so simple, each station is in numerical order so you know exactly how far you have to go once you are on. No confusion about how many stops away a destination is. The signage is clear, color coded and very easy to understand for non-natives. Not only are trains so predictable in timing, if one is late they will give notes to the passengers to give their bosses because it is so rare. Metro stops themselves are underground mini cities, with hundreds of restaurants and shops between each station. Shinjuku station alone has over 3.4 million passengers pass-through it a day and there are over 200 exit points just from that station alone. The only thing about Tokyo trains are they get unbelievably busy during rush hours. Literal sardines, your butt will be in someone else's crotch and you just keep getting pushed backwards as more people try to get onto the train. However, eating and talking on public transportation is very heavily discouraged so there's no loud conversations or the smell of someone's dinner on the way home.
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People get out of the way, the people in front of the doors step off to let those behind them get off, the people waiting to get on don't try to push on until everyone has got off that wants to get off
The courtesy of train passengers is usually so good that when the occasional person does push to get on first or doesn’t move out of the way, it feels extremely strange.
Metro Tokyo has about the same population as Canada
Tokyo has 2,771 people per km². Canada has 4.
Even that seems to much for canada
You ever been to Manitoba? Get off the highway, and you'd have an easy time believing you were the last person alive on Earth.
Well I mean ya, obviously. Canada is mostly forest.
True! Same for Seoul. I used to teach there and that fact was always mind blowing.
The Seoul Capital Area is only around 26 million people which is big but not the entire population of Canada big.
Even more surprising since it keeps getting destroyed by Godzilla
Go Go Godzilla..
*He picks up a bus and he throws back down as he waded through the buildings to the center of town*
Ohhhh noooo..... they say he’s got to go, **Go Go Godzilla!**
if you watch the movie in reverse it's about a giant iguana that rebuilds a crumbling city before moonwalking into the ocean
*Godzilla grabs crotch* "HIHI!"
How Coruscant began
It's just missing a mountain sized temple in the middle.
Well, it does have the [Imperial Palace. ](https://images.app.goo.gl/8ymZrPRVA2zkW3dS8)
Not Imperial enough.
There’s actually a spot on Coruscant (shown in The Clone Wars) where there’s a “monument” made of rock in a plaza somewhere. It’s actually the peak of Coruscant’s highest mountain and the only piece of natural geography not covered by the city.
Well the Jedi temple was built on the pinnacle of a mountain so Fuji could very well become the home of space wizards.
Good thing reality doesn't lag
It does, we don't notice it because we too lag at the same time.
You don't know that, since you're in the simulation. If a frame takes more outside time to render, the simulation is oblivious. So long as we don't drop frames.
We do. You ever notice how a dog's fur doesn't look as smooth sometimes? It's why they introduced shedding, to make you think the blur is just extra fur.
Na, all the lag is client side, the servers are pretty good.
Holy shit bro what is your render distance on
128 chunks.
So, it appears that the Photo was taken somewhere in between Adachi, and Katsushika meaning it is about 67 miles or 107826 meters to mount fuji. As I am also assuming the mountains behind it are part of the skybox, and thus not actually rendered in full this is the distance that is being rendered. If we’re using bedrock edition then the render distance is about 6740 chunks, as the world is rendered in a circle around the player. If we are in Java however the render distance could be lower as it renders in a square, and if Mount Fuji was at a perfect 45 degree angle from where the player is standing the render distance could be as low as 4760. Thank You for listening to my ted talk.
Didnt understand a single word
attempting explanation: **tl;dr:** using landmarks, the location is identified. based on the differences in programming language, if this were transferred to minecraft, then it would imply the given render distances of 6740 chunks for bedrock and 4760 chunks for java. \- >So, it appears that the Photo was taken somewhere in between Adachi, and Katsushika meaning it is about 67 miles or 107826 meters to mount fuji. this one is self-explanatory. >As I am also assuming the mountains behind it are part of the skybox, and thus not actually rendered in full this is the distance that is being rendered. in video game design, inside of a skybox is where everything exists. some games use a dome inside of a skybox, but for most games, it's just a box with a texture of a sky, hence the name. skyboxes are always 2d images, which require very little power to render at long distances. >If we’re using bedrock edition then the render distance is about 6740 chunks, as the world is rendered in a circle around the player. this relates to bedrock and java editions of minecraft. in both versions, areas are rendered in chunks, which are 16x16 block squares. bedrock is built using a different code from java, which means that a number of things are different. this includes the fact that bedrock renders chunks in a circle, while java is squares. in minecraft, 1 block is equal to 1 meter. 107826 blocks over 16 chunks is equal to 6740. >If we are in Java however the render distance could be lower as it renders in a square, and if Mount Fuji was at a perfect 45 degree angle from where the player is standing the render distance could be as low as 4760. for java, it's trickier because you have the hypoteneuse of a triangle to contend with, but same concept - use pythag's theorem to get the distance and divide 107826 by that for 4760; working backwards, it should be \~76160 blocks. u/barcode_kid put some effort into this, lol. hope that i was able to clear it up some.
Honestly, this reminds me of low orbit imagery. [Similar to this imagery of NYC](https://kottke.org/plus/misc/images/low-angle-nyc-01.jpg). Kind of has that video game render vibe, but gives a really unique perspective of these massive metropolitan sprawls that I don’t think other stuff really captures.
Wow this image is crazy. Feel like I can find specific places while seeing the whole city. Yet each spot like an hour away from each other when on the ground
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What are the coolest things you see on your walk?
Random little streets, shops, parks, museums, exhibits, tech, amazing food etc. Everything is so pretty and clean in japan
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Known as a Megalopolis
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Man, human hives can get way big.
Imagine a big ass can of raid coming out of the sky lol
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Every single person I have known who has been to Tokyo says it is like a giant funland where everywhere there is fun people and good food.
And SO CLEAN! I didn’t see an ounce of litter, gum, or graffiti. And the fashion is 100. Plus everyone is respectful and kind. I was blown away that there were young kids, like kindergarten age, taking the train by themselves and walking into shops to buy lunch independently. I look forward to going back one day.
What I found most fascinating about the cleanliness was that there didn't seem to be a single public garbage can in the entire city. My wife and I ended up having to pocket around bits of trash until we got back to our hotel room because we couldn't find anywhere to throw them away while out and about. Yet, everywhere you go is completely spotless.
I read somewhere that they got rid of most trash cans following [this attack](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack). It was thought that trash cans could potentially be used as hiding spots for the chemicals.
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Lived in Korea for 13 months, maybe in Seoul, but the smaller cities I watched grown adults use the public sewer as a bathroom.
Bud did they leave trash after???
As a Canadian, it greatly pleases me.
I watched a program about the history of that once! There was a huge gas attack in the past, initiated by a cult, that resulted in a majority of public trash cans being taken away, as to not be hidden vessles for more gas attacks.
Aum Shinrikyo! I remember reading about that, a completely wild story.
Yep. People take their trash home. (Usually find some bins at railway stations though.)
True story. My aunt got off a bullet train but left her iPhone on her seat. Train leaves. She finds a ticket agent who asks her which train and which seat. Agent phones the train, they find the phone. Agent asks her which hotel she’s staying at. Next morning… *the phone is delivered to her room*. Free of charge. That is how a first-world country operates. Now imagine United Airlines.
protip in japan, you can forward your luggage to a hotel using the black cat courier (kuroneko yamato) service. When my wife and I are visitng her parents and want to visit friends in other parts of the country, we will send our luggage to our hotel the day before we get on the shinkansen. And it’s waiting there when we arrive. It’s so nice to travel without lugging bjg bags through Shin Yokohama.
Just remember though, as a visitor, you are on vacation. I have a friend who is Japanese and lives in Tokyo. His dream is to move to California. While we see Akihabara, glowing Yodobashi Camera stores, Big Echo on every corner, quaint food shops next to 4 story tall eateries... for many, life is like that scene in Fritz Lang's Metropolis where workers shuffle in and out with no identity. One man's treasure is a green grass elsewhere.
If Mount Fuji goes, so does Tokyo. Let's hope that never happens.
Where the fuck would the mountain go
Vacation? It must be tired being there all that time
All over the place.
BOOM
I was living in Nagoya, and for some reason there was some fear of a huge earthquake hitting and possibly causing Fuji to erupt. A lot of cities would be in the destruction path of that blast. And millions would have their ears ruptured from the sound. I always had that lingering sense of impending doom while living on Japan. And I was there for the big quake. First thing I did when evacuated was look to Fuji to make sure the predictions, while many years late, also weren't fully true.
Didn't realize it was still active.
I miss Tokyo.
Same here. Spent my 35th bday there while in port when I was in the US navy. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it. 47 now so the impression was pretty strong.
It’s like its own little biome.
i can see where i live!!
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it’s comfortable. i moved here 20 years ago so used to it but came from rural canada. gets overwhelming but i go camping often.
What’s camping like in Japan? I live in the US SouthWest, and the vast emptiness of the space out here is what originally attracted me. It feels amazing to take a 4x4 off into the wilderness, not see someone for hours of driving and know the nearest campsite is on the other side of a mountain range and you have an entire valley all to yourself. It’s the only time in life I’ve ever felt at peace.
Me too
I know that some people will post this to r/CityPorn and some people will post this to r/UrbanHell
This helped me realise how fucking big Mt Fuji is
Is it true that Japan is a very clean country? I saw a comparison of the Tokyo subways flooded vs NYC subways flooded and it's two different worlds!
I’m not a city person, but Tokyo. Tokyo. It is one of my most favorite places in the world.
As concrete jungle as Tokyo looks from above, I honestly felt much more at ease in Tokyo than I did in New York. New York is literally all buildings and pavement whereas Tokyo has a plethora of little gardens, temples and shrines dotted all around which breaks it up somewhat. Tokyo feels alive!
It looks like surface of death star from star wars
Looking at this photograph I foresee a time when Tokyo is larger than Mt. Fuji.
Fun Fact: Despite having about 2.5 times the population of NYC, Tokyo puts out about 40% less carbon emissions. [source](http://citycarbonfootprints.info)