Tokyo serves as Japan's economic centre and is the seat of both the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan.
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Tokyo was devastated by the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, and again by Allied bombing raids during World War II.
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Tokyo is the largest urban economy worldwide by gross domestic product, and is categorized as an Alpha+ city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
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Tokyo is home to the world's tallest tower, the Tokyo Skytree, and the world's largest underground floodwater diversion facility, the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel.
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Tokyo is an international centre leading research and development in Japan and is likewise represented by several major universities, most notably including the University of Tokyo.
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The Tokyo Station is the central hub for Japan's high-speed railway network, the Shinkansen; the Shinjuku Station in Tokyo is the world's busiest train station.
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Tokyo was originally a village called Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province.
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Tokyo was already the nation's political center, and the emperor's residence made it a de facto imperial capital as well, with the former Edo Castle becoming the Imperial Palace.
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Tokyo went on to suffer two major catastrophes in the 20th century: the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, which left 140, 000 dead or missing; and World War II.
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Tokyo struggled to rebuild as occupation authorities stepped in and drastically cut back on Japanese government rebuilding programs, focusing instead on simply improving roads and transportation.
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Tokyo did not experience fast economic growth until the 1950s.
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Tokyo still sees new urban developments on large lots of less profitable land.
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Mainland Tokyo is further subdivided into the special wards and the Tama area () stretching westwards.
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Tokyo Prefecture is the most populous prefecture and the densest, with 6, 100 inhabitants per square kilometre; by geographic area it is the third-smallest, above only Osaka and Kagawa.
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When Tokyo reached its current extent except for smaller border changes in 1893, it consisted of over 170 municipalities, 1 city, nine districts with their towns and villages, plus the island communities that had never part of ritsuryo districts.
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Tokyo has been hit by powerful megathrust earthquakes in 1703, 1782, 1812, 1855, 1923, and much more indirectly in 2011; the frequency of direct and large quakes is a relative rarity.
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Tokyo is located on the Kanto Plain with 5 river systems and dozens of rivers that expand during each season.
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Tokyo has currently the world's largest underground floodwater diversion facility called the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel.
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Tokyo often sees typhoons every year, though few are strong.
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Tokyo has experienced significant warming of its climate since temperature records began in 1876.
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Tokyo is an example of an urban heat island, and the phenomenon is especially serious in its special wards.
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Tokyo has been cited as a "convincing example of the relationship between urban growth and climate".
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In 2006, Tokyo enacted the "10 Year Project for Green Tokyo" to be realized by 2016.
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Tokyo is a major international finance center; it houses the headquarters of several of the world's largest investment banks and insurance companies, and serves as a hub for Japan's transportation, publishing, electronics and broadcasting industries.
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Tokyo emerged as a leading international financial center in the 1960s and has been described as one of the three "command centers" for the world economy, along with New York City and London.
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Toyosu Market in Tokyo is the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world since it opened on October 11, 2018.
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Tokyo, which is the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, is Japan's largest domestic and international hub for rail and ground transportation.
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Public transportation within Tokyo is dominated by an extensive network of "clean and efficient" trains and subways run by a variety of operators, with buses, monorails and trams playing a secondary feeder role.
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Rail is the primary mode of transportation in Tokyo, which has the most extensive urban railway network in the world and an equally extensive network of surface lines.
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Also, long-distance ferries serve the islands of Tokyo and carry passengers and cargo to domestic and foreign ports.
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Public senior high schools in Tokyo are run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education and are called "Metropolitan High Schools".
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Tokyo has many private schools from kindergarten through high school:.
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Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, thus becoming the first Asian city to host the Summer Games.
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Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, in Sendagaya, Shibuya, is a large sports complex that includes swimming pools, training rooms, and a large indoor arena.
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Tokyo was selected to host a number of games for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and the Paralympics which had to be rescheduled to the summer of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.
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Tokyo is the founding member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21 and is a member of the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations.
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Especially with the United States, including NASA and the many private spaceflight companies, Tokyo universities have working relationships with all of the Ivy League institutions, along with other research universities and development laboratories, such as Stanford, MIT, and the UC campuses throughout California, as well as UNM and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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