Tokyo, the imperial residence since 1869, is the capital of Japan. The city is of international importance as a commercial and financial center. Nationally, Tokyo is the most important economic center and the cultural heart of the country. The city’s residents live under permanent risk of earthquakes.
Tokyo, the capital of Japan, was called Edo until 1868. It is home to 7.97 million people and is located on Honshu, the largest Japanese island.
Edo was founded as a castle town in the 15th century and passed into the possession of the Tokugawa family in 1590. After a member of this family was appointed Shogun (highest title in feudal Japan) in 1603, Edo became the political center of Japan. As early as 1700, Tokyo was one of the largest metropolises in the world with over 1.3 million residents. In 1869 the city became an imperial residence and since then has been called Tokyo, which means “Eastern Capital”.
Today, according to ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG, more than 9 million people live in Tokyo and around 36 million people live in the entire metropolitan area around the metropolis. And the city continues to grow. Although the price of land here is among the highest in the world, the flow of people moving from other parts of the country does not stop. The city has grown so far that it merges almost without borders into the nearby cities of Kawasaki / Yokohama in the south and Funabashi / Chiba in the east.
With an average of 14,500 residents / km², the city of Tokyo has an extremely high population density, which is why the traffic systems have been overloaded for decades. That is why attempts have been made since the 1960’s to restrict private car traffic and to encourage the population to use buses.
As the country’s main transport hub, Tokyo has the country’s largest port and, since 1960, an extensive subway system, which in 1997 was 170 km long.
Despite the great density, the cityscape is loosened up by more than 200 parks, which also serve for local recreation. The largest and most famous park with 85 hectares is the Uenopark. There is a zoo here as well as several temples and shrines.
Tokyo is a city with many faces, where politics, business and science are equally at home. Government and parliament have their seat here. There are also numerous universities and colleges as well as the Academy of Sciences. In addition to the National Theater, several private stages as well as numerous galleries, museums and libraries are of cultural importance.
Tokyo is also the country’s largest industrial city. The electrical industry, shipbuilding, automobile and aircraft construction as well as the metal processing, precision engineering, chemical, optical and pharmaceutical industries as well as the printing industry are located here. Tokyo is known internationally as a commercial and financial center.
The danger of earthquakes is an enormous problem. The last major earthquake was in 1923 and claimed over 74,000 deaths. Large parts of the historical building fabric fell victim to the earthquake, but also to the bombing of the Second World War.
Only a few old structures are still preserved. These include the Sensoji Temple, the Nezu Shrine and the Sajakuji Temple, which were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. Century were built.
Almost all of the buildings of interest to tourists date from the second half of the 20th century, for example the Imperial Palace, the reconstruction of which was completed in 1962 after its destruction in World War II. Other important contemporary structures include the National Museum of Western Art from 1959 and the Tokyo Tower. This city landmark, built in 1958, is 333 m high and was modeled on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Modern skyscrapers characterize the skyline of the northwest and northern districts. The Shinjuku district is particularly impressive, and its image is characterized by an ensemble of skyscrapers that reach heights of more than 200 m.
Japan Business
Japan is a country in East Asia, on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, with (2018) 126.5 million residents; The capital is Tokyo.
The rapid economic development and the profound structural change after the Second World War were among other things. made possible by close interaction between politics, business and administration. Until the end of the 1980s, Japan had steady and high economic growth, which was primarily geared to the manufacturing industry and experienced constant expansion. Japan was seen as a successful economic model. After the speculative “bubble economy” burst in 1990/91, however, Japan’s economy fell into a crisis that called the previous model of success into question. Shares and real estate lost up to two thirds of their value in the 1990s, while economic growth slowed significantly, the export economy was burdened by the high exchange rate of the yen and the Asian crisis (1997), domestic demand stagnated almost completely and unemployment rose to over 5%, a record high for Japan. In the 1990s, the government repeatedly tried to take extensive measures to stimulate the economy, but to no avail. The economy did not stabilize again until 2003, primarily thanks to rising exports. The positive external development was supported by the government’s reform policy, which in particular promoted the restructuring of the banks and the settlement of the immense problem loans. This alleviated one of the greatest burdens on the Japanese economy of the 1990s. With tax reforms, With easing on the labor market and privatizations, the deregulation of the economy continued. This recorded until 2007 Gross domestic product (GDP) increased significantly in real terms before Japan slipped into recession in the wake of the global financial crisis (2009: – 6.3%). After a temporary recovery phase, the country’s economy was hit hard by the aftermath of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. However, the government’s room for maneuver to cope with the crisis is limited by the high level of public debt (2017: 237.6% of GDP).
Foreign trade: Japan’s rise to become the third largest economy in the world went hand in hand with increasing integration into the global economy. Since the 1990s, the structure of goods and the regional shares of Japan’s foreign trade have changed dramatically. The share of finished goods in imports rose to over 60% (1985: around 30%), with returns from subsidiaries of Japanese companies (e.g. electronics and motor vehicles).
In 2017, imports were worth US $ 671 billion, while exports were worth US $ 698 billion. The most important industrial import goods (2017) are electronics (14.5% of total imports) and machines (9.7%). In addition, Japan imports a considerable amount of mineral fuels (21.1%). The export goods are motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts (20.9% of total exports), machines (19.8%) and electronics (15.1%). The USA has lost its rank as Japan’s most important trading partner to China (2017: 24.5% of imports; 19.0% of exports); Overall, around half of Japanese foreign trade takes place in Asia. The EU countries have a share of around 9%, the most important trading partner here is Germany.
