Tokyo Prefecture | Travel Information

Tokyo is Japan’s largest prefecture by population, despite the land area being one of the smallest. In total, the Tokyo city and metropolitan area has a population slightly under 13.2 Million people. Tokyo is the current capital of Japan, and has been since 1869. The city is what’s known as a meltopolitan prefecture, as the entire city of Tokyo, is one prefecture, but split up into over 20 different wards. Originally, the area was known as Edo, but when Emperor Meiji arrived in the region, Edo, became Tokyo.  When broken down in Japanese, Tokyo literally means East Capital, as new capital was east of the previous Captial city, Kyoto.