Places to Explore

• Akihabara and Jimbo-cho

  Akihabara is techno-geek heaven. Also known as Akihabara Electric Town, this district, which was once all about electronics, is becoming a wacky fetish district where otaku (nerds) can indulge in Japanese... (more)

• Aoyama, Harajuku, and Shibuya

  Who would have known? As late as 1960, this was as unlikely a candidate as any area in Tokyo to develop into the chic capital of Tokyo. Between Meiji shrine and the Aoyama Cemetery to the east, the area... (more)

• Asakusa

  Historically, Asakusa has been the hub of the city's entertainment. The area blossomed when Ieyasu Tokugawa made Edo his capital and it became the 14th-century city that never slept. For the next 300 years... (more)

• Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park

• Imperial Palace and Government District

  This district is the core of Japan's government. It is primarily comprised of Nagata-cho, the Imperial Palace (Kokyo-gaien), the Diet (national parliament building), the Prime Minister's residence (Kantei)... (more)

• Kamakura

  Kamakura, about 40 km (25 mi) southwest of Tokyo, is an object lesson in what happens when you set the fox to guard the henhouse.... For the aristocrats of the Heian-era Japan (794-1185), life was defined... (more)

• Nihombashi, Ginza, and Yuraku-cho

  Tokyo is a city of many centers. The municipal administrative center is in Shinjuku. The national government center is in Kasumigaseki. Nihombashi is the center of banking and finance, and Ginza is the... (more)

• Nikko

  "Think nothing is splendid," asserts an old Japanese proverb, "until you have seen Nikko." Nikko, which means "sunlight," is a popular vacation spot for the Japanese, for good reason: its gorgeous sights... (more)

• Odaiba

  Tokyo's "offshore" leisure and commercial-development complex rises on more than 1,000 acres of landfill, connected to the city by the Yurikamome monorail from Shimbashi. People come here for the arcades... (more)

• Roppongi and Azabu Juban

  During the last quarter of the 20th century, Roppongi was a better-heeled, better-behaved version of Shinjuku or Shibuya, without the shopping: not much happens by day, but by night the area is an irresistible... (more)

• Shinjuku

  If you have a certain sort of love for big cities, you're bound to love Shinjuku. Come here, and for the first time Tokyo begins to seem real: all the celebrated virtues of Japanese society—its safety... (more)

• Tsukiji and Shiodome

  Although it's best known today as the site of the largest wholesale fish market in the world, Tsukiji is also a reminder of the awesome disaster of the great fire of 1657. In the space of two days, it... (more)

• Ueno

  JR Ueno Station is Tokyo's version of the Gare du Nord: the gateway to and from Japan's northeast provinces. Since its completion in 1883, the station has served as a terminus in the great migration to... (more)

• Yokohama

  In 1853, a fleet of four American warships under Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into the bay of Tokyo (then Edo) and presented the reluctant Japanese with the demands of the U.S. government for the opening... (more)