Tokyo

Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō^?, "Eastern Capital") [toːkʲoː], English /ˈtoʊki.oʊ/; officially Tokyo Metropolis (東京都 Tōkyō-to^?),^[4] is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan.

Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of the world.^[5]

It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family.

Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands.^[6]

Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture (東京府 Tōkyō-fu^?) and the city of Tokyo (東京市 Tōkyō-shi^?).

Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo,^[6] in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province.^[20]  During the early Meiji period, the city was also called "Tōkei", an alternative pronunciation for the same Chinese characters representing "Tokyo". Some surviving official English documents use the spelling "Tokei".^[18] However, this pronunciation is now obsolete.^[19]


The Greater Tokyo Area is a large metropolitan area in Japan, consisting of the Kantō region as well as the prefecture of Yamanashi. In Japanese, it is referred to by various terms, the most common of which being National Capital Region (首都圏 Shuto-ken^?).
  
Musashi Province (武蔵国 Musashi no kuni^?) was a province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo Prefecture, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture.^[1] It was sometimes called Bushū (武州^?). The province encompassed Kawasaki and Yokohama.

The Meiji period (明治時代 Meiji-jidai^?), also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912.^[1] This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan during which Japanese society moved from being an isolated feudalism to its modern form.