The history of Tokyo as a city can be traced back to the construction of Edo Castle in 1457. The castle was built by Ōta Dōkan on behalf of the Uesugi clan on the site of the old fishing village of Edo, itself settled by the Edo clan in the 12th century.
In 1524, the Hōjō clan took over Edo Castle from the Uesugi clan. This event was part of an era of civil war in Japan known as the Sengoku period.
Ultimately, Edo Castle was acquired by the Tokugawa clan.
Japan was eventually reunified by the warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu, who established the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603. While the emperor continued to reside in Kyoto, the formal capital in the west, the Tokugawa seat of Edo became the de facto capital of Japan. Thus began the Edo period.
While Kyoto’s emperor remained the de jure head of state of Japan, the real power rested with Edo’s shogun, a military dictator nominally appointed by the emperor. The shogun’s castle, today’s Tokyo Imperial Palace, was the city center. A warrior culture led by the shogun and his samurai developed.
Edo grew rapidly in the early 17th century, and a collection of highways known as the Edo Five Routes connected it to other major cities within Japan. However, in 1657, the Great Fire of Meireki destroyed more than half of Edo and killed over 100,000 residents. Reconstruction took two years.
According to Nishiyama (1997), Edo initially produced little of its own, importing both “daily necessities” and “cultural artifacts” from Kyoto and Osaka. These imported goods were sold at stores called Edo-dana; these were established by provincial businesses and staffed by migrants and commuters.
Towards the end of the 18th century, however, a distinct identity began to emerge in Edo. A new term, Edokko (“child of Edo”), was coined to refer to those chōnin (commoners) who had lived in Edo for generations. They were distinct from both newer migrants and the ruling samurai class.
One of the centerpieces of Edokko identity was the Edo/Tokyo dialect of Japanese, which has since become the prestige dialect. Initially originating as the speech of samurai and Edokko merchants, it gradually spread throughout the city as lower-class women married into wealthy merchant families.
By the 18th century, Edo was flourishing as a cultural center in its own right. Many of Edo’s artistic practices were influenced by the unique dynamic between the samurai, Edokko, and outsiders. Edokko theater and literature were often critical of the political establishment.
Among the merchants of Edo, class consciousness manifested in the aesthetics of iki. The ruling samurai passed laws that restricted lower classes from expressing their wealth to appear above their official status. The merchants developed iki to be aesthetically modest in a way that was still visibly expensive.
Edo experienced a political shock in 1853, when the United States Navy arrived at its shores and demanded that Japan open up for trade. The Convention of Kanagawa of 1854 established unequal trade relations. Nationalists called for the removal of the weak shogun in favor of the emperor.
The Boshin War broke out between supporters of the emperor and the shogunate in 1868. The former emerged victorious in 1869, establishing the Empire of Japan. The emperor, now overseeing a constitutional monarchy, moved into Edo, renamed Tokyo, meaning “eastern capital.”
The political turmoil slashed Tokyo’s population in half, but the city quickly modernized under the new imperial government during a period known as the Meiji Restoration. Western-style universities, parks, and museums were built, and administrative reforms were implemented.
Tokyo suffered many disasters before and during World War II, such as the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 and the Bombing of Tokyo. After the war, however, its metropolitan area grew rapidly beyond the city limits, forming the Greater Tokyo Area (better known as the Capital Region in Japan.)
Along with the rest of Japan, Tokyo experienced explosive growth in the coming decades, culminating in the bubble economy of the 1980s during which land prices in Tokyo skyrocketed. With its metropolitan population exceeding 15 million in the 60s, Tokyo became the largest city in the world.
Though Tokyo still holds that title, its growth has slowed since the 1990s; Japan in general experienced an economic downturn when the economic bubble burst. Still, it remains a prosperous city, with the largest GDP in the world, excellent infrastructure, and millions of yearly tourists.