A RIDE ON THE YAMANOTE Chapter I (Pietrovito Moschetti)

Tokyo is no city. It is not very clear where it begins nor where it ends; it is impossible to define its centre; it has no mayor.

From a legal point of view Tokyo is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. But a special one. In fact it is not called県 (ken), as the other prefectures, but 都 (to), which we could translate as metropolitan area. Furthermore, there is the so called Greater Tokyo Area which is formed by the union of the metropolitan area of Tokyo with three bordering prefectures (inside of which we find famous cities like Yokohama e Kawasaki). The Greater Tokyo Area is a giant of 35 milion inhabitants, who alone produce a GDP similar to the one of France. The metropolitan area of Tokyo, which counts around 12 milion people is divided into 26 cities and 23 special wards. Each one of them elect its mayor. The borders of these cities and wards are only on the map: walking around in Tokyo you will notice no border as the urban area continues with no interruption. To notice that you have walked to a different city or ward you will have to look at the address on the doors of shops and houses.

All this is not necessarily of great help for you to understand the geography of Tokyo. A Japanese person will probably not tell you the name of the city or the ward he lives in, as it would be too much a vague description for you to distinctly locate it on the map. In Tokyo the best way to locate spots on the map is by telling your nearest train or metro station. That is because, inside the Greater Tokyo Area, it is very hard to find a place that is farther than a 15 minute walk to a station. Hence, the station gives the name to the area around it. Places like Ueno, Roppongi, Ikebukuro, Akihabara are no cities nor wards from a legal point of view, but are far more popular names in the minds of people living in Tokyo than the names of the cities of Tokyo.

We said that there is no centre in Tokyo. Impossible to find one in an area that is a fusion of so many cities, every one with its own architecture and characteristics.  In Tokyo, though, there is a circle. Actually, it is more oval-shaped than a circle, but on almost every map and the mind of every person living in Tokyo it is a perfect circle, with a circumference of 35 kilometers. A train can do a round turn of it in 55 minutes, stopping at 29 stations. It’s the Yamanote circle, among tenths of rail lines the most important in Tokyo. Every day alone it moves three million and a half passengers (just to give you an idea, the whole tube system in London has less than 3 million passengers every day). From 4,30 am to half past midnight it goes around the circle in both senses, touching the majority of the most important and crowded spots in Tokyo. It also sets an important border: if you live inside the Yamanote circle you are very central, if you live just outside the circle you are rather central, the farther you live from the Yamanote, the less central you are.

In these pages we ride the Yamanote and we have a look at the world we see inside the train (taking a train in Japan is a rather interesting experience anthropologically speaking) as well as outside the stations.