Tokyo

Tokyo exists because Tokugawa Ieyasu needed a castle far from the old imperial capital Kyoto—400 years later, that deliberate distance from tradition made it the world's richest city by GDP.

In 1590, warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu moved to a fishing village called Edo, where a minor castle guarded a shallow bay. After winning the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and becoming shogun in 1603, Ieyasu made Edo his administrative capital while the emperor remained ceremonially in Kyoto. The sankin-kōtai system required daimyo lords to maintain mansions in Edo and alternate years between Edo and their domains—creating a permanent aristocratic population and a massive service economy. By 1720, Edo had over one million people, likely the world's largest city.

The 1868 Meiji Restoration abolished the shogunate and the emperor relocated from Kyoto to Edo, renamed Tokyo ('Eastern Capital'). Under the slogan 'Fukoku kyōhei' (Enrich the country, strengthen the army), Meiji leaders imported Western technology at staggering speed. The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 and WWII firebombing (1945) destroyed much of the city twice, but each destruction enabled modernization. The 1964 Olympics showcased rebuilding; the 1980s bubble made Tokyo the world's financial center; the 2020 Olympics (held 2021) demonstrated post-pandemic resilience.

Today Tokyo's $2 trillion GDP makes it the world's richest city by nominal output. The 14 million city population (41 million Greater Tokyo Area) represents the world's most populous metropolitan area. The Tokyo Stock Exchange, with market capitalization exceeding one quadrillion yen in July 2024, is the world's fourth largest. Toyota, Sony, Mitsubishi, and SoftBank maintain headquarters here. Tokyo ranks first in Asia and third globally in the Global Power City Index.

By 2026, Tokyo's test will be whether Japan's weakening yen and aging population can preserve its global financial centrality—or whether Shanghai and Singapore will inherit Asia's economic command center.