Setagaya Business Square is a neighborhood in

Setagaya, Tokyo is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is also the name of a neighborhood and administrative district within the ward. The ward calls itself Setagaya City in English. Its official bird is the azure-winged magpie, its flower is the fringed orch ...

. Its name appears frequently in traffic reports because the junction between the Tōmei Expressway and the elevated Shibuya branch (#3) of the Metropolitan Expressway system is there. There is also a stop, Yōga Station, on the

Tōkyū Den-en-toshi line The is a major commuter line operated by the private railway operator Tokyu Corporation and connecting south-western suburbs of Tokyo and neighbouring Kanagawa Prefecture, with its western terminus of , to a major railway junction of western d ...

here. There is also a bus services (Tokyu Bus) and possible access to the area with numbers of buses. Two traffic cameras on top of the SBS tower overlook the junction, the Yōga toll gate, and other parts of the neighborhood.

History

In the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

, Yōga was a post-town on the Ōyama Kaidō, a road connecting Edo and Ōyama Mountain in

Sagami Province was a province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu, Musashi, and Suruga. It had access to the Pac ...

Derivation

The name comes from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

root of the word "yoga". The

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

temple Shinpuku-ji chose the Sanskrit-derived appellation Yuga-san. The Sanskrit is also the root of the word "yoga" (योग→瑜伽→用賀).

Culture

Yōga is home to

Kinuta Park is a park in Setagaya, Tokyo. The total area is , about two-thirds of which () is grass. Kinuta Park is famous for its cherry blossom (''sakura'') viewing. It has at least three varieties— Someiyoshino (photo), Yamazakura, and Yaezakura ...

, a broad green space established in 1957. The park is located 10 minutes from the Yōga Station and covers . Kinuta Park has sports facilities, including

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

fields, a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

court, and swimming pools (25m and 50m, also a small pool for kids and diving pool). The

Setagaya Art Museum The is an art museum in Yōga, Setagaya, Tokyo. The museum, which opened March 30, 1986, houses a permanent gallery and mounts seasonal exhibitions. Structure The main building of the museum, a contemporary design by architect Shōzō Uchii, ...

, est. 1986, is located on a corner of Kinuta Park. The museum has a permanent collection with an emphasis on

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

, particularly the works of Kineo Kuwabara and Kōji Morooka. Yōga is noted for its educational institutions, and his home to many primary, junior, and high schools. Perhaps the most significant of them all is Sakuramachi State Primary, which had biggest numbers of pupils in Setagaya-ku back in 1992–93 with more than 600 pupils.

Neighbourhood

Around the Yoga station is perhaps the most vibrant area of Yoga. It is a residential area after all and there are numbers of residential friendly facilities including large super markets (OK Store and Fuji supermarket) as well as smaller grocery stores, butcher, off-licence, fish shops, etc.

Education

Setagaya Board of Education operates public elementary and junior high schools. 1 and 2- chome are zoned to Sakuramachi Elementary School (桜町小学校). 3 and 4-chome are zoned to Kyosai Elementary School ( 京西小学校) and Yoga Junior High School ( 用賀中学校). Different parts of 1 and 2-chome are each zoned to Fukasawa Junior High School ( 深沢中学校) and Seta Junior High School (瀬田中学校).

References

* http://www.setagayaartmuseum.or.jp/

External links

* Setagaya Business Square Neighborhoods of Tokyo Setagaya {{Tokyo-geo-stub, Yoga, Tokyo