Tokyo Capitaland Metropolis city forJapanese .

Tokyo was originally a village called Edo, part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan in the late twelfth century. In 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle to defend the region from the Chiba clan. After Dōkan was assassinated in 1486, the castle and the area came to be possessed by several feudal lords. In 1590Tokyo was originally a village called Edo, part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan in the late twelfth century. In 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle to defend the region from the Chiba clan. After Dōkan was assassinated in 1486, the castle and the area came to be possessed by several feudal lords. In 1590 Tokugawa Ieyasu was granted the Kantō region by Toyotomi Hideyoshi .

The Imperial House was based in Kyoto from 794 to 1868, so Edo was still not the capital of Japan.[30] During the Edo period, the city enjoyed a prolonged period of peace known as the Pax Tokugawa, and in the presence of such peace, the shogunate adopted a stringent policy of seclusion, which helped to perpetuate the lack of any serious military threat to the city.[31] The absence of war-inflicted devastation allowed Edo to devote the majority of its resources to rebuilding in the wake of the consistent fires, earthquakes, and other devastating natural disasters that plagued the city. Edo grew into one of the largest cities in the world with a population reaching one million by the 18th century.

This prolonged period of seclusion however came to an end with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853. Commodore Perry forced the opening of the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate, leading to an increase in the demand for new foreign goods and subsequently a severe rise in inflation.[33] Social unrest mounted in the wake of these higher prices and culminated in widespread rebellions and demonstrations, especially in the form of the "smashing" of rice establishments.[34] Meanwhile, supporters of the Emperor leveraged the disruption caused by widespread rebellious demonstrations to further consolidate power, which resulted in the overthrow of the last Tokugawa shōgun, Yoshinobu in 1867. After 265 years, the Pax Tokugawa came to an end.