Tokyo's urban area has continually expanded, particularly following the late Meiji period, the Great Kanto Earthquake, the postwar housing shortage period, and the period of high economic growth.
	The population of Edo was approximately 1.5 million, which has grown to roughly 12 million in a little over 130 years. In the late 1960s, the decaying urban area and unsystematic sprawl extending out into the suburbs were addressed as major tasks for urban planning. Amendments to the City Planning Law in 1968 checked further sprawl by introducing a system that defines Urbanization Promotion Areas and Urbanization Control Areas and development regulations for each. Mass population pressures on Tokyo are strong: from the latter half of the 1950s through the first half of the 1960s, the population increased an average of 300 to 400 thousand people per year. Lack of progress with intensive land utilization in central Tokyo, however, forced the population to flow out into the suburbs. Tokyo's combination of horizontal overcrowding and vertical underdevelopment is unprecedented in the world.

	References for map production 1964 - "Tokyoto kinkyuu douro seibi jigyou keikaku zu (Tokyo emergency road provision plan map)" 1961-1965 (roads) - "Tokyo Olympic shisetsu no zenbou (Tokyo Olympic facilities in detail)," Tokyo Densetsu Kougyoukai (roads) - Geographical Survey Institute 1/50,000 scale old edition map (roads, coastline, railways) - "Architecture Guide 6: Tokyo," Shigetake Nagao. Maruzen. (metropolitan area) 1945 - Geographical Survey Institute 1/50,000 scale old edition map (roads, coastline) - "Atlas Tokyo," Heibonsha, p 28 (metropolitan area), 51 (railroad map) 1923 - Geographical Survey Institute 1/50,000 scale old edition map (roads) - "Atlas Tokyo," Heibonsha, p 19 (coastline), 51 (railroad map, metropolitan area) 1868 - Geographical Survey Institute 1/50,000 scale old edition map (roads) - "Atlas Tokyo," Heibonsha, p 19 (coastline), 49 (railroad map, metropolitan area) 1860 - "Atlas Tokyo," Heibonsha, p 19 (roads, metropolitan area), p 26 (coastline) Other references - "Tokyo Olympic shisetsu no zenbou (Tokyo Olympic facilities in detail)," Tokyo Densetsu Kougyoukai, 1964 - "Dezain no genba (Design on site)," Bijutsu shuppan, 1998 - "Tokyo toshi keikaku monogatari (The Story of Tokyo City Planning)," Koshizawa, Akira. Nihon Keizai Hyoronsha, 1991 - "Tokyo o tsukutta hanashi (Talk about Making Tokyo)," Toukenkinenshi hensankai. Nihon Keizai Hyoronsha, 1998 - "Shuto kousoku douro koudan sanjuunen shi (The 30 year history of the Metropolitan Expressway Public Corporation)," Metropolitan Expressway Public Corporation, 1994 - "Zuhyou de miru Edo/Tokyo (The world of Edo/Tokyo seen through diagrams)," Edo Tokyo Museum, 1998 - "Atlas Tokyo," Heibonsha, 1986 - "Tokyo no toshi keikaku hyakunen (100 years of Tokyo city planning)," Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of City Planning, 1989 - "Kenchiku (Architecture) Guide 6: Tokyo," Shigetake Nagao. Maruzen, 1966

	Top Page		Archives		About "Mid-Tokyo Maps"		Viewers' voices		Inquiries
Copyright (c) 2001 Mori Building Co., Ltd.