This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Is it correct to be redirecting Tonkin to Tokyo? While I believe that "Tonkin" is etymologically derived from the same Chinese source words (eastern capital), I can't say I've ever heard Tokyo called "Tonkin" (at least, not in English, and not in my dabbling in Japanese), while the name "Tonkin" is well known to Americans as a place in Vietnam. (See Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) -- Brion VIBBER 02:08 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)
If "Tokyo" means "Eastern Capital", where were the other three capitals? -- Menchi 00:51 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Can't we have a more interesting-to-read introductory paragraph? As it stands right now, the first sentence does not even mention that Tokyo is capital and largest city of Japan as well as being at the center of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. I think that would be more interesting to know than the fact that Tokyo is 2186.9km² in area. Is something like the following acceptable? -- seav 00:29, Nov 3, 2003 (UTC)
I like this. I just applied this to the article. The intro seems too long and too detailed--like mentions about fu, shi and should be made compact later. -- Taku 06:27, Nov 3, 2003 (UTC)
Tokyo isn't a prefecture or a city: it's a hybrid of the two. If you go to the Tocho's website, you'll notice that Tokyo is always referred to as "metropolis" and "metropolitan," never "city" or "prefecture."
AFAIK, it's also incorrect to call the islands "sub-prefectures," as they have no real political status and their "sub-prefectural" offices are merely representatives of the Metropolitan Government. The actual administration goes from the Tocho to the village governments. Anyway, since Tokyo isn't a prefecture to begin with, the term is misleading in itself.
I tried to explain this in a previous edit, but it was reverted out: if I'm wrong, somebody please point out my error. It might be a pedantic distinction, but it's almost as erroneous as calling the District of Columbia a state of the United States. I could possibly understand calling Hokkaido a prefecture, since it basically is one... but Tokyo is a special administrative case and political scientists like me are probably interested in knowing about it. Sekicho 22:43, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Also, just for the record, I would advise anyone adding or moving photos on this page to test the layout at 1024x768 before saving. At that resolution, many editions of this article have had very bad overlaps.
The first Landsat photo may not belong, as it actually mostly depicts Urayasu, Chiba-ken and only a small portion of Tokyo itself. Also, does anyone have any idea what portion of Tokyo the second Landsat pic depicts? Sekicho 22:56, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Where should I place the 1st photo? Should I place it in the Chiba Prefecture article? And as for the 2nd Landsat, I will put it back in the place of the 1st. WhisperToMe 23:53, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I just made a thumbnail of the 2nd pic, and the 1st pic was moved to the Chiba Prefecture article. WhisperToMe 00:31, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
We need a disambiguation on this page, because even those who are familiar to japanese topics get confused. That Tokyo-to had double aspects as a prefecture and a city is the past thnig. If you do not believe this, please think about a concrete example how Tokyo differs from other prefectures aside from its name and subtle points in taxation policy. -- Takanoha 14:17, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Because the current article (and some author?) makes confusion between Prefecture and City, we have to say that Tokyo City does not exist. Tokyo-to government no longer has a city aspect. If you do not aware of this yet, in Japanese, an entity (eg. Tokyo-to) often changes its characteristics while retaining its name and most of its substracture. The same name does not mean the same thing. By the way, I never deprived the metropolitan status from Tokyo. -- Takanoha 15:34, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
"Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture" = 70 hits "Tokyo Prefecture" = 3,000 hits "Tokyo Metropolis" = 4,000 hits "Tokyo Metropolitan Government" = 23,000 hits
"Tokyo Prefectural" = 300 hits "Tokyo Metropolitan" = 129,000 hits
Consult [1] for further study. -- 202.233.20.11 15:54, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Is it really that Tokyo is not prefecture? Right, it is neither ken, fu, or do. But I think in terms of laws, Tokyo is treated just like other prefectures. Tokyo, as an administrative unit, is among 47 prefectures and we claim it is not a prefecture? I oppose to call Tokyo Tokyo Prefecture because it is just not common. But for the sake of readers, we should be clear about this or clearly state we are not clear about this. -- Taku 06:11, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)
The fact is that Tokyo-to does not administer the 23 special wards as though it were a city government, as the current article reads. The to system was supplanted by the to-do-fu-ken system by the 1947 act. The function of the to as a city has been then gradually diminished. Admittedly, the to still offers some very limitted services as a city, it does not justify saying the to as a hybrid prefecture and city, as it were decades ago. -- Takanoha 10:46, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I know this sounds very odd. But I think I have heard this and in fact there are some people say Tokyo is not a capital of Japan legally. The accuracy is what we cannot ignore. The Japanese edition of Japan article says the same. We probably should clarify this in the history section, what actually happened when Edo became Tokyo. -- Taku 07:55, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
Dang it, right when I thought I was going to go to sleep on time, I ran head-on into an intellectual debate! Oh well. I have created a new article, Capital of Japan debate, where we can collate more information on this question. (It gets more and more bizarre the more I read about it.)
By the way, WhisperToMe, the emperor does live in Tokyo most of the time, but the Imperial Palace in Kyoto is still there, and it's still owned by the imperial family. So technically speaking, the Emperor can be said to live in both Tokyo and Kyoto. Sekicho 10:56, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
Okay, someone reverted my edit when I placed in some alternate spellings of Tokyo at the very top of the article.
They should be in someplace in the top, but how should I deal with this? WhisperToMe 03:14, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
So you mean we have a responsbility to provide alternative spellings. I added a sentence at the end of the opening section. What do you think? I think a spelling other than Tokyo freaks out even Japanese readers as well as English speakers. -- Taku 04:07, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)
What you did is good. :) Thank you. I did unbold the stuff in the para that is not a "name", though it is still italicized. WhisperToMe 04:09, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and as I added stuff to the Japanese articles manual relation to romanization, I have a proposed new opening...
Tokyo ( Japanese: 東京; lit. eastern capital, Hepburn: Tōkyō or Toukyou, Nippon-shiki/ Kunrei: Tôkyô, JSL: Tookyoo),
See: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_for_Japan-related_articles
WhisperToMe 02:11, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The link to Saitama in the sentence "Tokyo is also part of the Greater Tokyo Area, which consists of Tokyo itself and the surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba." leads to the city but should lead to the prefecture. I don't know how to change links... May 9, 2004 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.117.22.148 ( talk) 01:37, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
Companies based in the Tokyo suburbs should be noted as well as companies in the city limits; suburbs are often associated with the main city. For instance, look at the companies list of Dallas and Chicago. WhisperToMe 03:41, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Just for the record, I live in Saitama and I have never, ever heard anyone from here refer to themselves as coming from Tokyo. Exploding Boy 18:47, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
Many of them will say "Saitama, near Tokyo," or something similar, but usually not just "I'm from Tokyo," no. And when talking to other Japanese people they'd never say "I'm from Tokyo." Exploding Boy 19:05, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
I think the Tokyo Tower image should be above the prefectural table. Any other opinions on this? WhisperToMe 16:50, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The current image is small and blurry, a replacement would be ideal. Commander 21:29, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
The standard format for prefecture articles is that there is no photograph at the top. So I moved the Tokyo Tower image down. Tokyo does not have to be an exception. It is more like a prefecture than a city. Photojpn.org 03:55, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've revamped the captions for the images on this page following the guidelines of the Caption Writing WikiProject. I used to live in Tōkyō (2001–2002), but of course suggestions and corrections to the new captions are welcome. -- Che Fox 06:49, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
User:Leonhart has been running around editing every reference to Tokyo as the world's largest, claiming the top spot for Seoul. I won't debate Seoul's size, but the Japan Statistics Bureau's own figures are that Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama combined had 33,190,000 people in 2000, some 6 million higher than even the most optimistic Seoul figures. Jpatokal 16:29, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
And by "Seoul", you also mean the suburbs of Seoul + Seoul itself, right? WhisperToMe 16:32, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There are two Tokyo categories, Category:Tokyo and Category:Tokyo Prefecture (sic). I'm inclined to list Category:Tokyo Prefecture on WP:CFD but thought I'd raise the idea here first. Since Tokyo is NOT a prefecture, I think the prefecture category is at best misnamed (could perhaps be Category:Tokyo Metropolis), but I'm not sure the prefecture (metropolis) category has any purpose at all. I think the relevant categorizations should be:
Please indicate agreement or alternate suggestions. -- Rick Block 03:14, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The article lists the number of municipalities in Tokyo as 39. Yet, according to Municipality of Japan, the special wards are counted as municipalities. Thus, there should be 62 (23 ku + 26 cities + 5 towns + 8 villages) Nik42 02:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I feel the section mentioning the bombing of Tokyo is somewhat evasive on the issue of the "firebombing" (c.f. Bombing of Tokyo in World War II). I feel that a mention and link to this important aspect of the bombing campaign should be added.-- Malcohol 13:29, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Does size matter? Looks/feels like the Tokyo wiki page simply has too much information. Many sections could be removed and replaced with a link to a new wiki. Particularly the tourism and culture sections. Shopping? Is that really necessary here? Also, it seems that many of the photos are redundant or simply not necessary. Tokyo station from the outside AND the inside? The TSE building? Is it remarkable for its architecture? Sanja Matsuri AND rickshaws in front of Sensoji? Two photos of Tokyo Tower?
Surely, I acted in haste. But I DID remove the entire tourism and culture section from this Tokyo wiki and put it in the Tourism in Tokyo wiki. Thoughts? Comments? Reversions?
The section on movies and anime that take place in tokyo is invariably going to be incomplete. Nor would making it complete add much to the article --- I'm sure that the total number is strictly in the hundreds, if not the thousands or tens of thousands. (Imagine adding a similar list to the New York article. The London article. incidentally, has handled it rather well.) We should either cut it down in some way (to "very well known" media, for instance, although that's sure to spark much useless debate), or give it its own article. Thoughts?
I took the liberty of changing the title "Tokyo Metropolitan Government" on the infobox. The box gives data on Tokyo Metropolis itself, not the government; putting "Kanagawa Prefectural Government" on the Kanagawa box would sound silly. Since we argued so much about whether to call Tokyo-to "Tokyo Prefecture" way back when, I thought this change deserved a quick explanation. If anyone has a problem with it, feel free to debate. - Sekicho 06:12, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
It should just be "Tokyo." I changed it to just "Tokyo." That's what the article is named, and no one calls it "Tokyo Metropolis." There's only one Tokyo, and no one can mistake it for anything else. Photojpn.org 04:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I somehow doubt that the State of New South Wales is a sister city of Tokyo. I am quite sure Sydney is not a sister city, however this is the biggest city in New South Wales, and indeed Australia. Can somebody clarify?
I have converted the History section into a chronology (like the Japanese version). This will make it much easier for people to modify and add more text to this section. Photojpn.org 07:45, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Before I change this paragraph again, let me explain to Takuya and whoever wrote it, what's wrong with it. First of all, we are not writing a casual tourist pamphlet. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia where we must remain factual and technically correct.
Tokyo is not a city, and Tokyo is not the capital of Japan (Chiyoda-ku is). Tokyo is closest to being a prefecture of Japan. This is what should be in the first sentence of the introduction. In everyday conversation, I agree that there's no problem in referring to Tokyo as a city or Japan's capital. However, in an encyclopedia, this is not appropriate because it is not technically correct. You cannot say Tokyo is the largest city in Japan in an encyclopedia because it is not a city. You could say it is the largest urban area, and no further.
You don't need to mention the population because it is stated in the Info box. You don't need to mention the fact that many people commute to Tokyo because this is what occurs in ALL major cities in Japan and the world. People from neighboring towns, cities, and prefectures commute to the city. There is nothing unusual about it.
You already say it is the capital of Japan in the first sentence, so there is no need to again mention that it is the "seat of the national government." It is obvious that this paragraph needs to be cleaned up which I did before you changed it back.
Regarding the number of skyscrapers compared to other cities, WHO CARES?? I would delete this or mention it somewhere else. It is not essential information. And I don't think those of us who live in Tokyo would agree that there are few skyscrapers here. There are MANY or certainly enough for Tokyo to handle. See Shinjuku, Shiodome, Marunouchi, Shinagawa, Ikebukuro, etc. They are sprouting like mushrooms. Then the paragraph suddenly talks about the complex mass transit system and the crowded rush hours. All big cities have the same thing. This paragraph is obviously poorly written or edited. This paragraph and the entire Tokyo article needs a major cleanup and overhaul. Photojpn.org 01:25, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
-- Photojpn.org, your opinions are certainly respected here, but I think you need to remember that the English language wikipedia is going to naturally be slanted towards English/American semantics. What the western world defines as a city is somewhat different than what Japan might technically call a city. Also, many people don't have any idea what life is like in a large metropolis, so mentioning the transportation patterns is actually quite useful. The number of skyscrapers is also of interest to many people, even if it is not of interest to you; the urban layout and density of development can reveal a lot about a particular city. Why don't you compare the article to other large cities like New York City and London, before you decide that the Tokyo article is terrible? -- Jleon 01:52, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
As for whether Tokyo is the capital or not, the bottom line is we cannot change the reality. Do you really claim that Tokyo is not the capital of Japan? Are you suggesting any reference work that says this is factually wrong? For example, I personally believe it is wrong to call what Japanese people call Sea of Japan Sea of Japan. But people do and we cannot correct the world. True, maybe we have to teach people in the world that Tokyo is not the capital of Japan, but wikipedia is just not a place to do that. -- Taku 02:13, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
To Jleon: Whoever wrote the skyscraper paragraph sounds like he/she last visited Tokyo 20 or 30 years ago. Anti-quake technologies in high-rise buildings have vastly improved, and so we are seeing a skyscraper construction boom during the past 10 years or so. As for comparing the number of skyscrapers, give me specific statistics. How many skyscrapers are there in Tokyo and how many in Manhattan, L.A., Paris, London, etc? If Tokyo is the largest city in the world, is there really a comparable city that we can compare it with? Based on what criteria? Population? Area? For the casual reader, what is the value in comparing the number of skyscrapers between big cities?
Perhaps you didn't see it, but just a few days ago, this Tokyo article (which pales in comparison to NYC and London) had a big notice at the top saying that this article needed to be CLEANED UP. And something like "do not add more info until after cleaning it up." So I finally actually read this article which looks impressive at a glance with all that text and images. But when I read it, sure enough, it was a real hodge-podge of text with illogical or disjointed paragraph structures, misinformation, and lack of information. Please read the article the way it was before April 15 when I started overhauling it. Read the Prefectural symbols section claiming that "a coat of arms" with sun radiating out (with an unrelated link). And nobody caught this??
A lot of band-aid contributions, but there is no one smoothing out the wrinkles. This is a serious drawback to this collaborative project. I really hope that Wikipedia will eventually hire or assign someone (a professional editor knowledgeable in the subject) to oversee articles. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that everyone loves to correct or add to other people's work, but very few are inclined to really contribute anything new or original. Just look at the history of this article. Photojpn.org 14:47, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The 1911 template was placed in the article to replace a line about an alternate spelling of Tokyo. Now that we've removed those spellings, which were in any case common enough that nobody needed to refer to the Britannica to find them, can we remove the 1911 template, or does anyone know of a reason to keep it? Fg2 06:07, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
I've taken a map of the land portion of Tokyo, separately colored the 23 Special Wards and the Tama region, and labeled the surrounding prefectures and Tokyo Bay. Please comment on it. I can make some improvements before we post this in the article. Especially, if I've made any errors, I'd appreciate your letting me know here. Thanks to User:Photojpn.org for the link to the software for drawing the map! Fg2 01:17, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
The article on Tokyo on Wikimedia Commons needs organization. I invite suggestions on the talk page. Speakers of other languages are welcome to post similar invitations in the other Wikipedias and sister projects. Fg2 00:36, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
Let it be known that I'm finished with this article and I won't be modifying it any further. I will unwatch it, so go ahead and do whatever you want with it. I'm withdrawing from active participation in Wikipedia's Japan-related pages. It's one thing to spend time writing articles and uploading images, and another thing to keep watching it due to vandals and uninformed and unqualified writers. I really don't care to spend time for the latter, and rather just concentrate on producing the content. And without any qualified editor-in-chief overseeing the quality and accuracy of articles, I cannot take this Wikipedia project seriously. (Although there are many good articles here, many more are just eternal stubs and poor-quality entries.) I will instead work on my own Japan site. A place where I won't have to worry about vandals, etc. I don't regret at all my brief participation here. It was a very interesting experiment and experience for me. But it just doesn't work for me. Thanks to all who helped me out. Photojpn.org 12:11, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've rewritten the intro on public transport because I feel "unsurpassed" is an exaggeration. It's probably the largest (statistics, basis for comparision anyone?) network, and certainly incredibly clean and reliable, but also has some serious drawbacks. The network is not particularly well-integrated, partly due to the plethora of operators; while individual fares are quite reasonable, changing between networks can get quite expensive. The train system is orientated to bringing large numbers of people to and from the center (Yamanote line area); journeys between suburbs can be quite difficult and often easier to achieve via the Yamanote Line. Buses play a very subsidiary role and are also very slow, due to a lack of acceleration measures (bus lanes and the like), and are also split up between a variety of operators. Ianb 09:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
--New York City has the largest subway system by mileage of track and number of stations, while Moscow has the largest system by annual ridership. As far as cleaniless/efficiency is concerned, that's somewhat subjective but Madrid's system is probably close to the top in that regards. I beleive the cheapest subway fare is Mexico city's which is around $0.20 for the whole system. It's still safe to say that Tokyo's is among the best in the world though. -- Jleon 19:13, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
"Tokyo has a larger economy than any other metropolis -- larger, indeed, than most nations'. Its nominal GDP of around $1.315 trillion is greater than that of P.R. China, Canada, South Korea or Mexico."
The inclusion of China is erroneous. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
59.167.84.254 06:05, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
What is the correct term for someone from Tokyo? Tokyoan? Tokyonian? Anthropax 21:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I think it's "Tokyoite". WhisperToMe 05:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Because this won't get any attention on the actual page, I'll try it out here.
Please read the following carefully. As it is right now (although I have changed a few bits) the articles linking/relating to Tokyo's Oume City are spelled incorrectly. 青梅 (oume), meaning blue plum (basically), while APPEARING to have a long ō vowel, technically does not. The kanji meaning blue is read as a single syllable /o/, and the kanji meaning plum is read as /ume/. When you combine the two characters together, it does not become a long vowel ō plus a me, and the /u/ sound is not (for the most part) blended into the first /o/ as it would usually be with long vowels in Japanese. Thus おうめ (oume) or おおめ (oome) would be pronounced /oh-meh/ but 青梅 is pronounced /oh-ume/ albeit with a slightly shorter /o/.
Another example of this (I had a better example but it slipped my mind!) is the 白馬 (shirouma, white horse) which is clearly pronounced /shiro-uma/ without a long vowel.
Now the problem here is ... even the official website for Oume constantly spells it as Ome, because the truth is, a good portion Japanese people don't use/need Romaji on a constant basis and don't really care much for it. I don't think that's an excuse to spell it wrong (considering the pronounciation difference) and I hope you do to. freshgavin TALK 05:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The "downtown" part of Tokyo consists of 23 parts called "special wards." Each special ward is like a city. Every one of them has its own mayor and city council. Each has a name, and several special wards have the English word "city" as part of their English name. Not one of them has the name "Tokyo."
The 23 wards together do not make up all of the Metropolis of Tokyo. Tokyo encompasses many more cities, towns, and villages outside the downtown part. Tokyo even includes some faraway islands such as Iwo Jima.
Decades ago, there was a city named Tokyo. You can find out more information by reading the article Tokyo City. Since 1943, no city in Japan has had the name Tokyo.
What makes this different to any other major city in the world? Cities such as London, Sydney and New York are all divided into smaller cities. They're still refered to collectively as a city. 62.254.168.102 14:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Comment on the GDP was recently changed to Tokyo has the largest metropolitan economy in the world: its nominal GDP of around $1.315 trillion is greater than the 14th. largest economy in the world. This is unclear because it doesn't clearly define the scope in which the word economy is used. The previous edit stated that the nominal GDP of the Metropolitan Tokyo Area was greater than that of Mexico, which clearly states the scope of the economies but someone must have thought it irrelevant (or worse) that Mexico was chosen as the comparison. If nobody can think of a better way to phrase this I think it should be reverted. Also, what is the source that gives you 14th? Using the $1.3t figure, Wikipedia's List_of_countries_by_GDP_(Nominal) puts Tokyo at 8th, ahead of Spain. freshgavin TALK 00:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I removed Sydney and inserted New South Wales in the list of sister cities according to this Tokyo Metropolitan Government web page. Since NSW is not a city, I labeled it "sister state," again, following the nomenclature on Tokyo Met's web page. Note that Sydney and Nagoya are sister cities. Fg2 12:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
An editor added Mexico City to the list of sister cities. The Japanese Wikipedia does not have this information, nor could I find it in the article on Mexico City in English, Spanish or Japanese. Does anyone know whether it's correct? Fg2 20:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Tokyo/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
References section weak (July 12 2006) |
Last edited at 04:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 20:54, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Is it correct to be redirecting Tonkin to Tokyo? While I believe that "Tonkin" is etymologically derived from the same Chinese source words (eastern capital), I can't say I've ever heard Tokyo called "Tonkin" (at least, not in English, and not in my dabbling in Japanese), while the name "Tonkin" is well known to Americans as a place in Vietnam. (See Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) -- Brion VIBBER 02:08 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)
If "Tokyo" means "Eastern Capital", where were the other three capitals? -- Menchi 00:51 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Can't we have a more interesting-to-read introductory paragraph? As it stands right now, the first sentence does not even mention that Tokyo is capital and largest city of Japan as well as being at the center of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. I think that would be more interesting to know than the fact that Tokyo is 2186.9km² in area. Is something like the following acceptable? -- seav 00:29, Nov 3, 2003 (UTC)
I like this. I just applied this to the article. The intro seems too long and too detailed--like mentions about fu, shi and should be made compact later. -- Taku 06:27, Nov 3, 2003 (UTC)
Tokyo isn't a prefecture or a city: it's a hybrid of the two. If you go to the Tocho's website, you'll notice that Tokyo is always referred to as "metropolis" and "metropolitan," never "city" or "prefecture."
AFAIK, it's also incorrect to call the islands "sub-prefectures," as they have no real political status and their "sub-prefectural" offices are merely representatives of the Metropolitan Government. The actual administration goes from the Tocho to the village governments. Anyway, since Tokyo isn't a prefecture to begin with, the term is misleading in itself.
I tried to explain this in a previous edit, but it was reverted out: if I'm wrong, somebody please point out my error. It might be a pedantic distinction, but it's almost as erroneous as calling the District of Columbia a state of the United States. I could possibly understand calling Hokkaido a prefecture, since it basically is one... but Tokyo is a special administrative case and political scientists like me are probably interested in knowing about it. Sekicho 22:43, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Also, just for the record, I would advise anyone adding or moving photos on this page to test the layout at 1024x768 before saving. At that resolution, many editions of this article have had very bad overlaps.
The first Landsat photo may not belong, as it actually mostly depicts Urayasu, Chiba-ken and only a small portion of Tokyo itself. Also, does anyone have any idea what portion of Tokyo the second Landsat pic depicts? Sekicho 22:56, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Where should I place the 1st photo? Should I place it in the Chiba Prefecture article? And as for the 2nd Landsat, I will put it back in the place of the 1st. WhisperToMe 23:53, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I just made a thumbnail of the 2nd pic, and the 1st pic was moved to the Chiba Prefecture article. WhisperToMe 00:31, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
We need a disambiguation on this page, because even those who are familiar to japanese topics get confused. That Tokyo-to had double aspects as a prefecture and a city is the past thnig. If you do not believe this, please think about a concrete example how Tokyo differs from other prefectures aside from its name and subtle points in taxation policy. -- Takanoha 14:17, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Because the current article (and some author?) makes confusion between Prefecture and City, we have to say that Tokyo City does not exist. Tokyo-to government no longer has a city aspect. If you do not aware of this yet, in Japanese, an entity (eg. Tokyo-to) often changes its characteristics while retaining its name and most of its substracture. The same name does not mean the same thing. By the way, I never deprived the metropolitan status from Tokyo. -- Takanoha 15:34, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
"Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture" = 70 hits "Tokyo Prefecture" = 3,000 hits "Tokyo Metropolis" = 4,000 hits "Tokyo Metropolitan Government" = 23,000 hits
"Tokyo Prefectural" = 300 hits "Tokyo Metropolitan" = 129,000 hits
Consult [1] for further study. -- 202.233.20.11 15:54, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Is it really that Tokyo is not prefecture? Right, it is neither ken, fu, or do. But I think in terms of laws, Tokyo is treated just like other prefectures. Tokyo, as an administrative unit, is among 47 prefectures and we claim it is not a prefecture? I oppose to call Tokyo Tokyo Prefecture because it is just not common. But for the sake of readers, we should be clear about this or clearly state we are not clear about this. -- Taku 06:11, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)
The fact is that Tokyo-to does not administer the 23 special wards as though it were a city government, as the current article reads. The to system was supplanted by the to-do-fu-ken system by the 1947 act. The function of the to as a city has been then gradually diminished. Admittedly, the to still offers some very limitted services as a city, it does not justify saying the to as a hybrid prefecture and city, as it were decades ago. -- Takanoha 10:46, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I know this sounds very odd. But I think I have heard this and in fact there are some people say Tokyo is not a capital of Japan legally. The accuracy is what we cannot ignore. The Japanese edition of Japan article says the same. We probably should clarify this in the history section, what actually happened when Edo became Tokyo. -- Taku 07:55, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
Dang it, right when I thought I was going to go to sleep on time, I ran head-on into an intellectual debate! Oh well. I have created a new article, Capital of Japan debate, where we can collate more information on this question. (It gets more and more bizarre the more I read about it.)
By the way, WhisperToMe, the emperor does live in Tokyo most of the time, but the Imperial Palace in Kyoto is still there, and it's still owned by the imperial family. So technically speaking, the Emperor can be said to live in both Tokyo and Kyoto. Sekicho 10:56, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)
Okay, someone reverted my edit when I placed in some alternate spellings of Tokyo at the very top of the article.
They should be in someplace in the top, but how should I deal with this? WhisperToMe 03:14, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
So you mean we have a responsbility to provide alternative spellings. I added a sentence at the end of the opening section. What do you think? I think a spelling other than Tokyo freaks out even Japanese readers as well as English speakers. -- Taku 04:07, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)
What you did is good. :) Thank you. I did unbold the stuff in the para that is not a "name", though it is still italicized. WhisperToMe 04:09, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and as I added stuff to the Japanese articles manual relation to romanization, I have a proposed new opening...
Tokyo ( Japanese: 東京; lit. eastern capital, Hepburn: Tōkyō or Toukyou, Nippon-shiki/ Kunrei: Tôkyô, JSL: Tookyoo),
See: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_for_Japan-related_articles
WhisperToMe 02:11, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The link to Saitama in the sentence "Tokyo is also part of the Greater Tokyo Area, which consists of Tokyo itself and the surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba." leads to the city but should lead to the prefecture. I don't know how to change links... May 9, 2004 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.117.22.148 ( talk) 01:37, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
Companies based in the Tokyo suburbs should be noted as well as companies in the city limits; suburbs are often associated with the main city. For instance, look at the companies list of Dallas and Chicago. WhisperToMe 03:41, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Just for the record, I live in Saitama and I have never, ever heard anyone from here refer to themselves as coming from Tokyo. Exploding Boy 18:47, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
Many of them will say "Saitama, near Tokyo," or something similar, but usually not just "I'm from Tokyo," no. And when talking to other Japanese people they'd never say "I'm from Tokyo." Exploding Boy 19:05, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
I think the Tokyo Tower image should be above the prefectural table. Any other opinions on this? WhisperToMe 16:50, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The current image is small and blurry, a replacement would be ideal. Commander 21:29, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
The standard format for prefecture articles is that there is no photograph at the top. So I moved the Tokyo Tower image down. Tokyo does not have to be an exception. It is more like a prefecture than a city. Photojpn.org 03:55, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've revamped the captions for the images on this page following the guidelines of the Caption Writing WikiProject. I used to live in Tōkyō (2001–2002), but of course suggestions and corrections to the new captions are welcome. -- Che Fox 06:49, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
User:Leonhart has been running around editing every reference to Tokyo as the world's largest, claiming the top spot for Seoul. I won't debate Seoul's size, but the Japan Statistics Bureau's own figures are that Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama combined had 33,190,000 people in 2000, some 6 million higher than even the most optimistic Seoul figures. Jpatokal 16:29, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
And by "Seoul", you also mean the suburbs of Seoul + Seoul itself, right? WhisperToMe 16:32, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There are two Tokyo categories, Category:Tokyo and Category:Tokyo Prefecture (sic). I'm inclined to list Category:Tokyo Prefecture on WP:CFD but thought I'd raise the idea here first. Since Tokyo is NOT a prefecture, I think the prefecture category is at best misnamed (could perhaps be Category:Tokyo Metropolis), but I'm not sure the prefecture (metropolis) category has any purpose at all. I think the relevant categorizations should be:
Please indicate agreement or alternate suggestions. -- Rick Block 03:14, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The article lists the number of municipalities in Tokyo as 39. Yet, according to Municipality of Japan, the special wards are counted as municipalities. Thus, there should be 62 (23 ku + 26 cities + 5 towns + 8 villages) Nik42 02:31, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I feel the section mentioning the bombing of Tokyo is somewhat evasive on the issue of the "firebombing" (c.f. Bombing of Tokyo in World War II). I feel that a mention and link to this important aspect of the bombing campaign should be added.-- Malcohol 13:29, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Does size matter? Looks/feels like the Tokyo wiki page simply has too much information. Many sections could be removed and replaced with a link to a new wiki. Particularly the tourism and culture sections. Shopping? Is that really necessary here? Also, it seems that many of the photos are redundant or simply not necessary. Tokyo station from the outside AND the inside? The TSE building? Is it remarkable for its architecture? Sanja Matsuri AND rickshaws in front of Sensoji? Two photos of Tokyo Tower?
Surely, I acted in haste. But I DID remove the entire tourism and culture section from this Tokyo wiki and put it in the Tourism in Tokyo wiki. Thoughts? Comments? Reversions?
The section on movies and anime that take place in tokyo is invariably going to be incomplete. Nor would making it complete add much to the article --- I'm sure that the total number is strictly in the hundreds, if not the thousands or tens of thousands. (Imagine adding a similar list to the New York article. The London article. incidentally, has handled it rather well.) We should either cut it down in some way (to "very well known" media, for instance, although that's sure to spark much useless debate), or give it its own article. Thoughts?
I took the liberty of changing the title "Tokyo Metropolitan Government" on the infobox. The box gives data on Tokyo Metropolis itself, not the government; putting "Kanagawa Prefectural Government" on the Kanagawa box would sound silly. Since we argued so much about whether to call Tokyo-to "Tokyo Prefecture" way back when, I thought this change deserved a quick explanation. If anyone has a problem with it, feel free to debate. - Sekicho 06:12, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
It should just be "Tokyo." I changed it to just "Tokyo." That's what the article is named, and no one calls it "Tokyo Metropolis." There's only one Tokyo, and no one can mistake it for anything else. Photojpn.org 04:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I somehow doubt that the State of New South Wales is a sister city of Tokyo. I am quite sure Sydney is not a sister city, however this is the biggest city in New South Wales, and indeed Australia. Can somebody clarify?
I have converted the History section into a chronology (like the Japanese version). This will make it much easier for people to modify and add more text to this section. Photojpn.org 07:45, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Before I change this paragraph again, let me explain to Takuya and whoever wrote it, what's wrong with it. First of all, we are not writing a casual tourist pamphlet. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia where we must remain factual and technically correct.
Tokyo is not a city, and Tokyo is not the capital of Japan (Chiyoda-ku is). Tokyo is closest to being a prefecture of Japan. This is what should be in the first sentence of the introduction. In everyday conversation, I agree that there's no problem in referring to Tokyo as a city or Japan's capital. However, in an encyclopedia, this is not appropriate because it is not technically correct. You cannot say Tokyo is the largest city in Japan in an encyclopedia because it is not a city. You could say it is the largest urban area, and no further.
You don't need to mention the population because it is stated in the Info box. You don't need to mention the fact that many people commute to Tokyo because this is what occurs in ALL major cities in Japan and the world. People from neighboring towns, cities, and prefectures commute to the city. There is nothing unusual about it.
You already say it is the capital of Japan in the first sentence, so there is no need to again mention that it is the "seat of the national government." It is obvious that this paragraph needs to be cleaned up which I did before you changed it back.
Regarding the number of skyscrapers compared to other cities, WHO CARES?? I would delete this or mention it somewhere else. It is not essential information. And I don't think those of us who live in Tokyo would agree that there are few skyscrapers here. There are MANY or certainly enough for Tokyo to handle. See Shinjuku, Shiodome, Marunouchi, Shinagawa, Ikebukuro, etc. They are sprouting like mushrooms. Then the paragraph suddenly talks about the complex mass transit system and the crowded rush hours. All big cities have the same thing. This paragraph is obviously poorly written or edited. This paragraph and the entire Tokyo article needs a major cleanup and overhaul. Photojpn.org 01:25, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
-- Photojpn.org, your opinions are certainly respected here, but I think you need to remember that the English language wikipedia is going to naturally be slanted towards English/American semantics. What the western world defines as a city is somewhat different than what Japan might technically call a city. Also, many people don't have any idea what life is like in a large metropolis, so mentioning the transportation patterns is actually quite useful. The number of skyscrapers is also of interest to many people, even if it is not of interest to you; the urban layout and density of development can reveal a lot about a particular city. Why don't you compare the article to other large cities like New York City and London, before you decide that the Tokyo article is terrible? -- Jleon 01:52, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
As for whether Tokyo is the capital or not, the bottom line is we cannot change the reality. Do you really claim that Tokyo is not the capital of Japan? Are you suggesting any reference work that says this is factually wrong? For example, I personally believe it is wrong to call what Japanese people call Sea of Japan Sea of Japan. But people do and we cannot correct the world. True, maybe we have to teach people in the world that Tokyo is not the capital of Japan, but wikipedia is just not a place to do that. -- Taku 02:13, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
To Jleon: Whoever wrote the skyscraper paragraph sounds like he/she last visited Tokyo 20 or 30 years ago. Anti-quake technologies in high-rise buildings have vastly improved, and so we are seeing a skyscraper construction boom during the past 10 years or so. As for comparing the number of skyscrapers, give me specific statistics. How many skyscrapers are there in Tokyo and how many in Manhattan, L.A., Paris, London, etc? If Tokyo is the largest city in the world, is there really a comparable city that we can compare it with? Based on what criteria? Population? Area? For the casual reader, what is the value in comparing the number of skyscrapers between big cities?
Perhaps you didn't see it, but just a few days ago, this Tokyo article (which pales in comparison to NYC and London) had a big notice at the top saying that this article needed to be CLEANED UP. And something like "do not add more info until after cleaning it up." So I finally actually read this article which looks impressive at a glance with all that text and images. But when I read it, sure enough, it was a real hodge-podge of text with illogical or disjointed paragraph structures, misinformation, and lack of information. Please read the article the way it was before April 15 when I started overhauling it. Read the Prefectural symbols section claiming that "a coat of arms" with sun radiating out (with an unrelated link). And nobody caught this??
A lot of band-aid contributions, but there is no one smoothing out the wrinkles. This is a serious drawback to this collaborative project. I really hope that Wikipedia will eventually hire or assign someone (a professional editor knowledgeable in the subject) to oversee articles. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that everyone loves to correct or add to other people's work, but very few are inclined to really contribute anything new or original. Just look at the history of this article. Photojpn.org 14:47, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The 1911 template was placed in the article to replace a line about an alternate spelling of Tokyo. Now that we've removed those spellings, which were in any case common enough that nobody needed to refer to the Britannica to find them, can we remove the 1911 template, or does anyone know of a reason to keep it? Fg2 06:07, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
I've taken a map of the land portion of Tokyo, separately colored the 23 Special Wards and the Tama region, and labeled the surrounding prefectures and Tokyo Bay. Please comment on it. I can make some improvements before we post this in the article. Especially, if I've made any errors, I'd appreciate your letting me know here. Thanks to User:Photojpn.org for the link to the software for drawing the map! Fg2 01:17, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
The article on Tokyo on Wikimedia Commons needs organization. I invite suggestions on the talk page. Speakers of other languages are welcome to post similar invitations in the other Wikipedias and sister projects. Fg2 00:36, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
Let it be known that I'm finished with this article and I won't be modifying it any further. I will unwatch it, so go ahead and do whatever you want with it. I'm withdrawing from active participation in Wikipedia's Japan-related pages. It's one thing to spend time writing articles and uploading images, and another thing to keep watching it due to vandals and uninformed and unqualified writers. I really don't care to spend time for the latter, and rather just concentrate on producing the content. And without any qualified editor-in-chief overseeing the quality and accuracy of articles, I cannot take this Wikipedia project seriously. (Although there are many good articles here, many more are just eternal stubs and poor-quality entries.) I will instead work on my own Japan site. A place where I won't have to worry about vandals, etc. I don't regret at all my brief participation here. It was a very interesting experiment and experience for me. But it just doesn't work for me. Thanks to all who helped me out. Photojpn.org 12:11, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've rewritten the intro on public transport because I feel "unsurpassed" is an exaggeration. It's probably the largest (statistics, basis for comparision anyone?) network, and certainly incredibly clean and reliable, but also has some serious drawbacks. The network is not particularly well-integrated, partly due to the plethora of operators; while individual fares are quite reasonable, changing between networks can get quite expensive. The train system is orientated to bringing large numbers of people to and from the center (Yamanote line area); journeys between suburbs can be quite difficult and often easier to achieve via the Yamanote Line. Buses play a very subsidiary role and are also very slow, due to a lack of acceleration measures (bus lanes and the like), and are also split up between a variety of operators. Ianb 09:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
--New York City has the largest subway system by mileage of track and number of stations, while Moscow has the largest system by annual ridership. As far as cleaniless/efficiency is concerned, that's somewhat subjective but Madrid's system is probably close to the top in that regards. I beleive the cheapest subway fare is Mexico city's which is around $0.20 for the whole system. It's still safe to say that Tokyo's is among the best in the world though. -- Jleon 19:13, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
"Tokyo has a larger economy than any other metropolis -- larger, indeed, than most nations'. Its nominal GDP of around $1.315 trillion is greater than that of P.R. China, Canada, South Korea or Mexico."
The inclusion of China is erroneous. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
59.167.84.254 06:05, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
What is the correct term for someone from Tokyo? Tokyoan? Tokyonian? Anthropax 21:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I think it's "Tokyoite". WhisperToMe 05:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Because this won't get any attention on the actual page, I'll try it out here.
Please read the following carefully. As it is right now (although I have changed a few bits) the articles linking/relating to Tokyo's Oume City are spelled incorrectly. 青梅 (oume), meaning blue plum (basically), while APPEARING to have a long ō vowel, technically does not. The kanji meaning blue is read as a single syllable /o/, and the kanji meaning plum is read as /ume/. When you combine the two characters together, it does not become a long vowel ō plus a me, and the /u/ sound is not (for the most part) blended into the first /o/ as it would usually be with long vowels in Japanese. Thus おうめ (oume) or おおめ (oome) would be pronounced /oh-meh/ but 青梅 is pronounced /oh-ume/ albeit with a slightly shorter /o/.
Another example of this (I had a better example but it slipped my mind!) is the 白馬 (shirouma, white horse) which is clearly pronounced /shiro-uma/ without a long vowel.
Now the problem here is ... even the official website for Oume constantly spells it as Ome, because the truth is, a good portion Japanese people don't use/need Romaji on a constant basis and don't really care much for it. I don't think that's an excuse to spell it wrong (considering the pronounciation difference) and I hope you do to. freshgavin TALK 05:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The "downtown" part of Tokyo consists of 23 parts called "special wards." Each special ward is like a city. Every one of them has its own mayor and city council. Each has a name, and several special wards have the English word "city" as part of their English name. Not one of them has the name "Tokyo."
The 23 wards together do not make up all of the Metropolis of Tokyo. Tokyo encompasses many more cities, towns, and villages outside the downtown part. Tokyo even includes some faraway islands such as Iwo Jima.
Decades ago, there was a city named Tokyo. You can find out more information by reading the article Tokyo City. Since 1943, no city in Japan has had the name Tokyo.
What makes this different to any other major city in the world? Cities such as London, Sydney and New York are all divided into smaller cities. They're still refered to collectively as a city. 62.254.168.102 14:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Comment on the GDP was recently changed to Tokyo has the largest metropolitan economy in the world: its nominal GDP of around $1.315 trillion is greater than the 14th. largest economy in the world. This is unclear because it doesn't clearly define the scope in which the word economy is used. The previous edit stated that the nominal GDP of the Metropolitan Tokyo Area was greater than that of Mexico, which clearly states the scope of the economies but someone must have thought it irrelevant (or worse) that Mexico was chosen as the comparison. If nobody can think of a better way to phrase this I think it should be reverted. Also, what is the source that gives you 14th? Using the $1.3t figure, Wikipedia's List_of_countries_by_GDP_(Nominal) puts Tokyo at 8th, ahead of Spain. freshgavin TALK 00:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
I removed Sydney and inserted New South Wales in the list of sister cities according to this Tokyo Metropolitan Government web page. Since NSW is not a city, I labeled it "sister state," again, following the nomenclature on Tokyo Met's web page. Note that Sydney and Nagoya are sister cities. Fg2 12:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
An editor added Mexico City to the list of sister cities. The Japanese Wikipedia does not have this information, nor could I find it in the article on Mexico City in English, Spanish or Japanese. Does anyone know whether it's correct? Fg2 20:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Tokyo/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
References section weak (July 12 2006) |
Last edited at 04:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 20:54, 4 May 2016 (UTC)