is a colloquial name for a neighborhood of

Chiyoda Ward , known as Chiyoda City in English,
." ''City of Chiyoda''. Retrieved on December 28, 2008. is a ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. 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 ...

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 (, ) is a park in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It covers an area of 161,636.66 m2 (40 acres) between the east gardens of the Kōkyo, Imperial Palace to the north, the Shinbashi district to the southeast and the Kasumigaseki government distri ...

and

Hibiya Station is a Tokyo subway station in the Yūrakuchō district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, operated by Tokyo Metro and Toei. The area around the station is generally called Hibiya, which is the southwestern corner of the Yūrakuchō district. Hibiya is T ...

(administratively in Yūrakuchō). Hibiya was part of the old

Kōjimachi is a district in Chiyoda, Tokyo. History Prior to the arrival of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the area was known as . The area developed as townspeople settled along the Kōshū Kaidō. In 1878, the Kōjimachi area became , a ward of the city of Tokyo. ...

ward in

Tokyo City was a Cities of Japan, municipality in Japan and capital of Tokyo Prefecture (1868–1943), Tokyo Prefecture (or ''Tokyo-fu'') which existed from 1 May 1889 until the establishment of Tokyo Metropolis on 1 July 1943. The historical boundari ...

, 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, usually made from species of the red algae genus ''Pyropia'', including ''P. yezoensis'' and ''Pyropia tenera, P. tenera''. It has a strong and distinctive flavor, and is generally made in ...

made of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

, 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 used s ...

, kanji characters used to phonetically represent native Japanese words.

History

Originally an inlet of the sea ran northwards to a cove at present-day Hibiya and Kokyo Gaien plaza, into which the

Kanda River The stretches 24.6 km from Inokashira Park in Mitaka, Tokyo, Mitaka to the Sumida River under the Ryōgoku Bridge at the boundary of Taito, Tokyo, Taitō, Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, and Sumida, Tokyo, Sumida. Its entire length lies within Tok ...

flowed. In the era of

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

, the

Tokugawa bakufu The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

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 th ...

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 era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

lived. On September 5, 1905, Hibiya Park was the initial site of the

Hibiya riots The , also known as the Hibiya riots, was a major riot that occurred in Tokyo, Japan, from 5 to 7 September 1905. Protests by Japanese nationalists in Hibiya Park against the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War escalate ...

, which expanded into a citywide riot, triggered by the terms of the

Treaty of Portsmouth The Treaty of Portsmouth is a treaty that formally ended the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War. It was signed on September 5, 1905, after negotiations from August 6 to 30, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, United States. U.S. P ...

which ended the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...

(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 Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

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

, 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

{{Authority control Neighborhoods of Tokyo Chiyoda, Tokyo

Etymology

History

See also

References