is a colloquial name for a neighborhood of

Chiyoda Ward is a special ward located in central Tokyo, Japan. It is known as Chiyoda City in English.Profi ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

. The area along Hibiya Street ( National Route 1) from

Yūrakuchō is a business district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, situated in between the Ginza and Hibiya Park, southeast of the Tokyo Imperial Palace. The district takes its name from Oda Nagamasu (1547–1622), who was also known as Yūraku (有楽). Oda Naga ...

Uchisaiwaichō is a district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, at the south-east corner of the ward bordering with Chūō and Minato. Uchisaiwaichō Station on the Toei Mita Line is located in the area. Parts of the Hibiya Station and Shimbashi Station are also located in th ...

is generally considered Hibiya district. Administratively, it is part of the Yūrakuchō district. There is no actual administrative district in Chiyoda called "Hibiya" but the name is used in some local place names such as

Hibiya Park Hibiya Park (日比谷公園 ''Hibiya Kōen'') is a park in Chiyoda City, Tokyo, Japan. It covers an area of 161,636.66 m2 (40 acres) between the east gardens of the Imperial Palace to the north, the Shinbashi district to the southeast and the K ...

and Hibiya Station (administratively in Yūrakuchō). Hibiya was part of the old Kōjimachi ward in

Tokyo City was a municipality in Japan and part of Tokyo-fu which existed from 1 May 1889 until its merger with its prefecture on 1 July 1943. The historical boundaries of Tokyo City are now occupied by the Special Wards of Tokyo. The new merged gov ...

, before it was transformed into a metropolis.

Etymology

The outskirts of this district are reclaimed from the ocean, and the "hibi" of Hibiya is derived from the facility for the laver of

nori Nori is a dried edible seaweed used in Japanese cuisine, made from species of the red algae genus '' Pyropia'', including ''P. yezonesis'' and '' P. tenera''. It has a strong and distinctive flavor, and is often used to wrap rolls of sushi or ...

made of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

, whose name is also "hibi". This effectively makes the word an

ateji In modern Japanese, principally refers to kanji used to phonetically represent native or borrowed words with less regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to in Old Japanese. Conversely, also refers to kanji use ...

, kanji characters used to phonetically represent native Japanese words.

History

In the era of

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, the

Tokugawa bakufu The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encycloped ...

worked out of

Edo castle is a flatland castle that was built in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan in Edo, Toshima District, Musashi Province. In modern times it is part of the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Chiyoda, Tokyo and is therefore also known as . Tokugawa Ieyasu established ...

and the area surrounding Edo castle was developed and landfilled. The fishing village then became an urban area where many

Daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

lived. On September 5, 1905, Hibiya Park was the initial site of the Hibiya riots, which expanded into a citywide riot, triggered by the terms of the

Treaty of Portsmouth A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...

which ended the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

(1904−1905). After the end of the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

Hibiya, the city of Tokyo had become a modern city for there were many buildings including the

Imperial Hotel Imperial Hotel or Hotel Imperial may refer to: Hotels Australia * Imperial Hotel, Ravenswood, Queensland * Imperial Hotel, York, Western Australia Austria * Hotel Imperial, Vienna India * The Imperial, New Delhi Ireland * Imperial Hotel, D ...

(Tokyo's first western hotel),

Rokumeikan The was a large two-story building in Tokyo, completed in 1883, which became a controversial symbol of Westernisation in the Meiji period. Commissioned for the housing of foreign guests by the Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru, it was designed by Bri ...

, Tokyo city hall and the Tokyo Club. In the 1930s, the first electric traffic light in Japan appeared at a Hibiya crossing point. The once fashionable district has changed into a business street.

References

External links

Neighborhoods of Tokyo Chiyoda, Tokyo {{Tokyo-geo-stub

Etymology

History

See also

References

External links