It has served as the Japanese capital since , [8] [9] its urban area housing the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government. It became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from Kyoto in ; at that time Edo was renamed Tokyo. Tokyo is often referred to as a city but is officially known and governed as a "metropolitan prefecture", which differs from and combines elements of a city and a prefecture, a characteristic unique to Tokyo.
Tokyo is considered to be one of the world's most important and powerful global cities. Also, this city is the most populous city of Japan. On July 1, , it merged with Tokyo Prefecture and became Tokyo Metropolis with an additional 26 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture, and the Izu islands and Ogasawara islands south of Tokyo.
As of October 1, , the population of Tokyo is estimated to be over As of [update] , Tokyo hosted 51 of the Fortune Global companies, the highest number of any city in the world at that time. Some surviving official English documents use the spelling "Tokei"; [28] however, this pronunciation is now obsolete.
Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan , in the late twelfth century. During the subsequent Edo period , Edo grew into one of the largest cities in the world with a population topping one million by the 18th century. That was caused by the Meiji Restoration in During the Edo era, the city enjoyed a prolonged period of peace known as the Pax Tokugawa , and in the presence of such peace, Edo adopted a stringent policy of seclusion, which helped to perpetuate the lack of any serious military threat to the city.
However, this prolonged period of seclusion came to an end with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew C. Perry in Commodore Perry forced the opening of the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate , leading to an increase in the demand for new foreign goods and subsequently a severe rise in inflation. In , the year-old Emperor Meiji moved to Edo, and in accordance, the city was renamed Tokyo meaning Eastern Capital. The city was divided into Yamanote and Shitamachi.
