Chiyoda, Tokyo / Japan

Chiyoda is a special ward located in central Tokyo, Japan. It is known as Chiyoda City in English.It was formed in 1947 as a merger of Kanda and Kōjimachi wards following Tokyo City's transformation into Tokyo Metropolis. The modern Chiyoda ward exhibits contrasting Shitamachi and Yamanote geographical and cultural division. The Kanda area is in the core of Shitamachi, the original commercial center of Edo-Tokyo. On the other hand, the western part of the Kōjimachi area typically represents a Yamanote district. Chiyoda consists of the Imperial Palace and a surrounding radius of about a kilometer. As of June 2020, the ward has an estimated population of 66,575, and a population density of 5,709 people per km², making it by far the least populated of the special wards. The total area is 11.66 km², of which the Imperial Palace, Hibiya Park, National Museum of Modern Art, and Yasukuni Shrine take up approximately 2.6 km², or 22% of the total area. Chiyoda is an economical powerhouse, the small area East of the palace in the districts of Otemachi, Marunouchi and Yurakucho houses the headquarters of 19 Fortune 500 companies, is the source of roughly 10% of the combined revenue of all Japanese companies and produced in 2017 the equivalent of around 1/4th of the GDP of the country. With a day population of around 850,000, its day/night population ratio is by very far the highest of all municipalities in Japan. Chiyoda is also the political center of the country, Chiyoda, literally meaning "field of a thousand generations", inherited the name from the Chiyoda Castle . With the seat of the Emperor in the Imperial Palace at the ward's center, many government institutions, such as the National Diet, the Prime Minister's Official Residence, the Supreme Court, ministries, and agencies are also located in Chiyoda, as are Tokyo landmarks such as Tokyo Station, Yasukuni Shrine and the Budokan. The neighborhood Akihabara is also located in Chiyoda, as are twenty embassies and consulates.