Tokyo travel guide

Top 10 sights in Tokyo

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower

   A 204-metre, fifty-storey vocational school in Nishi-Shinjuku, finished in 2008, wrapped in a diagonal steel web that gives it the cocoon shape. About ten thousand students study fashion, IT and medicine in it; the interior is closed, but it is the anchor of any Shinjuku architecture walk.

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   Tokyo Skytree

   At 634 metres the tallest tower in the world and the second tallest structure of any kind, opened in 2012 in Sumida. Its central shaft is decoupled from the outer frame so the two move out of phase in an earthquake, a principle borrowed from five-storey pagodas.

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3. 

   3© Akonnchiroll · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Tokyo Tower

   A 333-metre lattice tower of 1958, painted white and international orange to satisfy aviation rules, and built partly from the steel of American tanks scrapped after the Korean War. It was the tallest structure in Japan for forty-two years and its lighting changes with the season.

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   4© Wiiii · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Tokyo National Museum

   Japan's oldest and largest museum, founded in 1872 in Ueno Park, holding about 120,000 objects including eighty-nine National Treasures. Only a fraction is shown at a time, so the swords, Buddhist sculpture and ukiyo-e rotate; the Hōryū-ji treasures have their own Taniguchi building.

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   5© Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Yasukuni Shrine

   Shrine in Tokyo founded in 1869 for those who died fighting for the emperor, some 2.5 million names. Fourteen convicted war criminals were added in 1978, making visits by ministers contentious.

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   Tokyo Imperial Palace

   The emperor's residence, on the site of Edo Castle, of which the inner moats, walls and gate towers survive. The East Gardens are free and open most days, including the stone base of the keep that burned in 1657 and was never rebuilt; the palace itself opens twice a year.

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7. 

   7© Chris 73 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Harajuku

   District of Tokyo beside Meiji Shrine. Takeshita Street has been the centre of youth fashion since the 1970s, while Omotesandō alongside it carries the flagship stores of luxury brands.

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8. 

   8© LMP 2001 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Tokyo Disneyland

   The first Disney park outside the United States, opened in April 1983 on 51 hectares of reclaimed land at Urayasu, and licensed rather than owned by Disney. It draws around eighteen million people a year, and Tokyo Station is twenty minutes away by train.

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   Edo Castle

   A flatland castle begun in 1457 by Ōta Dōkan and rebuilt by Tokugawa Ieyasu from 1590 as the seat of a shogunate that lasted 265 years — at its height the largest castle in the world. The keep burned in 1657; its enormous stone base is walkable and free in the East Gardens.

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    10© Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA · CC BY 2.0

    Asakusa

    The district that grew as the temple town of Sensō-ji, and the best surviving piece of shitamachi — old working Tokyo. Nakamise's sweet stalls, rickshaw men, and the restaurant supply shops of Kappabashi are all within a few streets.

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Popular tickets & tours in Tokyo

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   1© CasinoKat · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Tokyo DisneySea

   A theme park of 2001 built around a harbour and a working volcano, and the only DisneySea in the world. It sells alcohol, its rides are aimed at adults, and its themed ports are widely reckoned the most detailed environments Disney has built anywhere.

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   Sensō-ji Temple

   Tokyo's oldest temple, founded by tradition in 628 when two fishermen pulled a Kannon statue from the Sumida, rebuilt in concrete after the 1945 firebombing. The great lantern of the Kaminarimon, Nakamise street and the main hall in sequence is the standard Tokyo walk, and still the right one.

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   3© Tokuzo in Edomura · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Meiji Jingū

   A shrine of 1920 to the deified Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken, set in a forest of about a hundred thousand trees donated from across Japan and planted to become self-sustaining woodland. It is beside Harajuku station, yet the gravel approach cuts the noise dead.

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   Yoshiwara

   The licensed pleasure quarter of Edo, laid out in 1617 and enclosed by a moat. It shaped woodblock printing and kabuki; prostitution was outlawed there in 1958.

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   Ghibli Museum

   A museum at Mitaka designed by Miyazaki Hayao himself, with no fixed route through it and a short film shown only here. Tickets are sold by date and time slot through Lawson convenience stores in Japan and sell out immediately, so buy them the day they are released.

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   6© Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Akasaka Palace

   A neo-baroque state guest house of 1909, built as the crown prince's palace and the only European-style palace in Japan of that scale. It opens to visitors when no state guests are in residence; the Asahi-no-Ma reception room and the fountain garden are the reason to go.

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   7© MaedaAkihiko · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Ikebukuro

   District in northern Tokyo built around the world's second-busiest railway station. Sunshine 60, finished in 1978, was the tallest building in Asia for a period.

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   8© The original uploader was Sdalu at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Ueno Imperial Grant Park

   A park established in 1873 on the grounds of Kan'ei-ji, the Tokugawa mortuary temple, and the densest concentration of museums in Japan — the National Museum, the Western Art Museum, the Science Museum and the zoo. Its thousand cherry trees make it the archetypal hanami site.

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   9© Kakidai · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St. Mary's Cathedral

   Seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tokyo, in the Sekiguchi district of Bunkyo. Kenzo Tange's rebuilding of 1964 — a cross-shaped plan under soaring stainless-steel shells — replaced the Gothic church that burned in the 1945 air raids.

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    10© Rs1421 · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Omotesandō

    A zelkova-lined avenue laid out in 1920 as the approach to Meiji Shrine, running down to Aoyama-dōri, and now the address of choice for flagship stores — Prada, Dior, Louis Vuitton, each by a name architect. Omotesandō Hills by Ando Tadao replaced a 1927 apartment block.

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