Talk:Tokyo

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Confused

The Map has a bar that states 1000km but the Tokyo prefecture is tiny compared to the bar and yet the article says that tokyo has a area of 2,817 km. Am I reading this right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.176.142.168 (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Good question! Area is length times width (for a rectangular box). So a box that's 40 km high and 50 km wide would have an area of 40×50 km² which is 2,000&nbs

p;km², even though it's much less than 100 km (never mind 1,000) in size. A different box 36 km high and 60 km wide would have an area almost exactly the same as Tokyo (notice it's 2187, not 2817). Look at the detailed map in the Japanese Wikipedia (click the link to 日本語 under Languages in the left column of the article—it's between Nederlands and Norsk) and you'll see that Tokyo is pretty much like that. So yes, it's right. Fg2 (talk) 00:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

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so is tokyo like london if the square mile was annexed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.76.223.111 (talk) 21:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Name of Tokyo

Is the name of Tokyo just a rearrangement of the name of Kyoto to signify the move of the capital of the country? — Rickyrab | Talk 16:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, "Kyoto" = "capital city", but "Tokyo" = "eastern capital". (See Kyoto) However, there might be wordplay involved. (The name "Saikyo" (western capital) never really took as a name for Kyoto, and perhaps the Tokyo-Kyoto name pair served as a useful mnemonic, thus making the name "Saikyo" unpopular.) — Rickyrab | Talk 16:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

"Tokyo" is 東京 and "Kyoto" is 京都. One kanji is in common but each name has another kanji that's not in common. When you add -to to write "Tokyo-to" (東京都), you get closer... but the "-to" is a later addition; initially it was "Tokyo-fu" (東京府) and inside it "Tokyo-shi" (東京市). Tokyo is truly in the East, and it was named "Eastern Capital"; apart from "kyo" (京) meaning "capital" the similarity of Tokyo and Kyoto is probably just an accident. Fg2 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Travel Guide Link

I would like to add Peter Greenberg's Off-the-Brochure Travel Guide on Tokyo to the External Links.

• Off-the-Brochure Travel Guide - Tokyo by Peter Greenberg Staff —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mpalmer22 (talk • contribs) 23:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Peter Greenberg's Off-the-Brochure is interesting, but does not warrant inclusion in the list of external links. These should be links to exception sites with significantly more information that is not on Wikipedia. Whats up skip (talk) 00:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Area of Tokyo

In the infobox, after the area of Tokyo is an additional value in parenthesis (45th) which does not have an explanation. It would be helpful if this were fixed. Legioss (talk) 00:16, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've written "Rank among prefectures"; let's see how people like it. Fg2 (talk) 00:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The label "Area" is linked to List of Japanese prefectures ranked by area. This seems pretty clear to me. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Rick, your update with "Area (rank)" and the word "rank" linked to that list is very nice. Fg2 (talk) 12:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Is the population density right?

I was looking at the page List of cities by population and I was confused since I remembered seeing a much lower number for the density on this page. Since the List of cities by population page has a reference, I went looking for the correct answer. The latest data I found dates back to 2005 and is available in Microsoft Excel 97 format at the following address : http://www.toukei.metro.tokyo.jp/tnenkan/2005/tn05qytia0210.xls. In that spreadsheet there are different values given. There is Tokyo-to that appears to be a total of all the districts that gives a population of 12576601 people and a land area of 2186.96 km² which gives a density of 5750.7 people/km².

What confuses me is that they list different values for "All-ku", "All-shi", "All-gun", "All-mura", etc... According to my limited knowledge of Japanese, mura means village and ku means something close to neighborhood. I don't know is what "Tokyo-to" means exactly. Is there someone with better knowledge of Japanese that can confirm that "Tokyo-to" means "all of Tokyo" and correct the articles accordingly?

The value appears close to 5750.7 so I'd suppose it's right.

"All-ku" probably means the population of the 23 special wards divided by the area of those wards; these collectively make up the former Tokyo City. For "all-shi" it would be the cities of Western Tokyo; these are the populous suburbs within the boundaries of Tokyo but west of what was once Tokyo City. For "all-gun" it's the total of the districts (which are sparsely populated) divided by their area; "mura" are villages. These are breakdowns of the major components of Tokyo. Tokyo-to is Tokyo Metropolis, including the 23 special wards, plus the cities, plus the districts. Much more extensive than the former Tokyo City. Fg2 (talk) 04:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Rome and Tokyo are Sister Cities???

Rome is only sister city with Paris and vice versa. Rome is only partner cities with Tokyo. As in " only Paris is worth of Rome, only Rome is worth of Paris". This quote can be found on both article of Paris and Rome.--Faizaguo (talk) 19:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Replacing a photo

I would like to suggest replacing Image:Tokyo 2006.jpg with Image:Tokyo aerial night.jpg. Arthena^(talk) 21:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Here are the two photos for comparison.

• 
  Image:Tokyo 2006.jpg (presently in the article)
• 
  Image:Tokyo aerial night.jpg (Arthena proposed putting this in place of Tokyo 2006)

Fg2 (talk) 21:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Eastern capital

Re: this addition, I don't see why this minor grammatical curiosity is noteworthy, and I note that no source was provided. For comparison, is it important that Ohio State could be read as "O, hi, o state"? Jpatokal (talk) 09:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you speak Japanese? If so, you can not do the comparison with Ohio, since you do know that To Kyo To means "Easter Imperial City" translating kanji per kanji, and what a coincidence that Tokyo is to the east of Kyoto. Have you research why Tokyo-to? Why is Tokyo finishing in TO, instead of KEN or SHI like the other provinces of Japan? None of that is mentioned in the article ...

BTW, the article says in the very first sentence "formally Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to)" this is absolutely not true, '都' does not mean metropolis and this is not formally, it is still used today, check any address in Japan in Japanese! Miguel.mateo (talk) 10:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I do speak, read and write Japanese, thank you very much. Tokyo itself means "Eastern Capital", so of course it's to the east of Kyoto. Kyoto itself was briefly renamed 西京　Saikyo ("Western Capital") in the early Meiji era.

The Tokyo#Geography and administrative divisions section covers the 都 thing in detail (with a pointer to Politics of Tokyo) and, yes, 都 is officially translated as "metropolis". And yes, it is a formal name, it's used in addresses and formal contexts but not in everyday speech (or have you taken a Shinkansen from Tokyo-to to Osaka-shi lately?). Jpatokal (talk) 15:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I see your point, but read the first sentence carefully, 'formally' sounds there like 'in old times, not anymore' ... what i am trying t osay, and even a few Japanese realized after explaining it, is that Tokyoto does mean "Easter Imperial Capital", reading Kanji by Kanji ... but anyway, end of the discussion, if you do not want to add it, no big deal. Miguel.mateo (talk) 17:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you are confusing formerly with formally. Jpatokal (talk) 07:22, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Pop Den in Square Miles

I wanted to edit this page but I guess I don't have access. I wanted to update the population density to also include square miles (like on other pages such as Seoul, Beijing, etc).

5,796 (square kilometers) = 2,237.84811 (square mile)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonberling (talk • contribs) 20:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC) 

The article had a high level of vandalism by IP users. Unfortunately that also protects it versus new users like in your case. We have several choices:

- Tell me the exact text and source it and I will include it OR

- Wait a few days and the article will go unprotected again so you can edit it OR

- Continue doing edits in other articles using your account, create your personal page (even with no info) and try editing this article again ... you should be able to edit it then.

Thanks,Miguel.mateo (talk) 22:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I took the population density that's currently listed on the page and used google to convert it to square miles.

Here's a link http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=5%2C796+%28square+kilometers%29+in+square+miles

I don't really have any other sources then that, but since its not really new information that should be good enough, right? Thanks for all of your help.Jonberling (talk) 04:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I just found out a fundamental problem with your calculation, this number is density, meaning 5,796 people per square kilometer, this number is not area of Japan. Let me know if my understanding is incorrect. Miguel.mateo (talk) 07:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

A mile is bigger than a kilometer, and a square mile is bigger than a square kilometer. If 5796 people live in a little square kilometer of Tokyo, more people live in a big square mile. So the answer has to be bigger than 5,796. Specifically, when you want to convert a kilometer to a mile, multiply by 0.62137 (that makes the number smaller) but when you want to convert per kilometer to per mile, divide (since "per" means division) by 0.62137 (that makes the number bigger). Finally, to convert per square kilometer to per square mile, divide by 0.62137 and then divide by 0.62137 again. So 5,796÷0.62137÷0.62137 = 15,011 is the answer. This is bigger than 5,796 as we anticipated. The population density of Tokyo is 15,011 per square mile. Fg2 (talk) 08:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer but I just wanted the original requester to understand the mistake that he was at the point to make. I am not planning to change the article until the original requester agrees. Miguel.mateo (talk) 08:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I see my mistake. Although you could have pointed it out sooner. :) I agree that Fg2's answer is correct. Thank-you very much for you help. Jonberling (talk) 03:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

That is why I said "I just found out" ... I will be doing the changes in a second, can you confirm you can not change this article still? Thanks Miguel.mateo (talk) 03:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I tried, the information needs to be populated through an info box. I changed the info box and the results are OK if the information is populated, but for the other prefectures in Japan this information is not there. I saw that the info box for Japan cities calculate the number automatically. I have un-done all the changes since I do not have time right now, will try again later.

In the mean while, does any one know how to do this? Basically a new field needs to be added to the Japan Prefecture info box and display it only if the field is available when the info box is used. Or what is better, display the square miles automatically since it is a simple formula, based on square kilometers? Miguel.mateo (talk) 03:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I have taken over tokyo.