Kyoto ( or ; Japanese: 京都, Kyōto [k̟ʲjó̞ò̞.tò̞] ⓘ), officially Kyoto City (京都市, Kyōto-shi; [k̟ʲjò̞ó̞.tó̞.ɕì, k̟ʲjó̞ó̞-] ⓘ, locally [k̟ʲjó̞ó̞.tó̞.ɕì]), is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. As of 2020, the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it the ninth-most populous city in Japan. More than half (56.8%) of Kyoto Prefecture's population resides in the city. The city is the cultural anchor of the substantially larger Greater Kyoto, a metropolitan statistical area home to approximately 3.8 million people. It is also part of the even larger Keihanshin metropolitan area, along with Osaka and Kobe.
Kyoto is one of the oldest municipalities in Japan, having been chosen in 794 as the new seat of Japan's imperial court by Emperor Kanmu. The original city, named Heian-kyō, was arranged in accordance with traditional Chinese feng shui following the model of the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an. The emperors of Japan ruled from Kyoto in the following eleven centuries until 1869. It was the scene of several key events of the Muromachi period, Sengoku period, and the Boshin War, such as the Ōnin War, the Honnō-ji Incident, the Kinmon incident, and the Battle of Toba–Fushimi. The capital was relocated from Kyoto to Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration. The modern municipality of Kyoto was established in 1889. The city was spared from large-scale destruction during World War II and, as a result, its prewar cultural heritage has mostly been preserved.
Kyoto is considered the cultural capital of Japan and is a major tourist destination. The Agency for Cultural Affairs of the national government is headquartered in the city. It is home to numerous Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, palaces and gardens, some of which have been designated collectively as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Prominent landmarks include the Kyoto Imperial Palace, Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji, Ginkaku-ji, and Kyoto Tower. The internationally renowned video game company Nintendo is based in Kyoto. Kyoto is also a center of higher learning in the country, and its institutions include Kyoto University, the second-oldest university in Japan.
Etymology
In Japanese, Kyoto was previously called Kyō (京), Miyako (都), Kyō no Miyako (京の都), and Keishi (京師). After becoming the capital of Japan at the start of the Heian period (794–1185), the city was often referred to as Heian-kyō (平安京, "Heian capital"), and late in the Heian period the city came to be widely referred to simply as "Kyōto" (京都, "capital city"). After the seat of the emperor was moved to the city of Edo and that city was renamed "Tōkyō" (東京, meaning "eastern capital"), Kyoto was briefly known as "Saikyō" (西京, meaning "western capital"). As the capital of Japan from 794 to 1868, Kyoto is sometimes called the thousand-year capital (千年の都).
Historically, foreign spellings for the city's name have included Kioto and Miaco, Meaco, or Miako.
History
Origins
Ample archeological evidence suggests human settlement in the area of Kyoto began as early as the Paleolithic period, although not much published material is retained about human activity in the region before the 6th century, around which time the Shimogamo Shrine is believed to have been established. Before Kyoto became the imperial capital, immigrants from mainland Asia contributed to the development of the area.
During the 8th century, when powerful Buddhist clergy became involved in the affairs of the imperial government, Emperor Kanmu chose to relocate the capital in order to distance it from the clerical establishment in Nara. His last choice for the site was the village of Uda, in the Kadono district of Yamashiro Province.
The new city, Heian-kyō (平安京; "tranquility and peace capital"), modeled after Chinese Tang dynasty capital Chang'an, became the seat of Japan's imperial court in 794, beginning the Heian period of Japanese history. Although military rulers established their governments either in Kyoto (Muromachi shogunate) or in other cities such as Kamakura (Kamakura shogunate) and Edo (Tokugawa shogunate), Kyoto remained Japan's capital until the transfer of the imperial court to Tokyo in 1869 at the time of the Imperial Restoration.
Feudal period
In the Sengoku period, the city suffered extensive destruction in the Ōnin War of 1467–1477, and did not really recover until the mid-16th century. During the war, battles between samurai factions spilled into the streets, and came to involve court nobility (kuge) and religious factions as well. Nobles' mansions were transformed into fortresses, deep trenches dug throughout the city for defense and as firebreaks, and numerous buildings burned. The city has not seen such widespread destruction since.
In the late 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi reconstructed the city by building new streets to double the number of north–south streets in central Kyoto, creating rectangle blocks superseding ancient square blocks. Toyotomi also built earthwork walls called odoi (御土居) encircling the city. Teramachi Street in central Kyoto is a Buddhist temple quarter where Toyotomi gathered temples in the city.
Early modern period
In 1603, the Tokugawa Shogunate was established at Edo (present-day Tokyo), marking the beginning of the Edo period. Nevertheless, Kyoto flourished as one of three major cities in Japan, the others being Osaka and Edo. At the end of the period, the Hamaguri rebellion of 1864 burned down 28,000 houses in the city, which showed the rebels' dissatisfaction towards the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Modern period
At the start of the Meiji period, the emperor's move from Kyoto to Tokyo in 1869 threatened Kyoto's economic and administrative standing, prompting the city government and local interests to undertake a coordinated plan to strengthen its industrial base and modernize.
Key industrial developments
- Lake Biwa Canal: Construction of the Lake Biwa Canal began in 1885 and was completed on 9 April 1890. The 20 km waterway linked Lake Biwa to Kyoto, supplying drinking water, irrigation, and, from 1895, hydroelectric power for factories and street lighting. It also enabled Japan's first electric tram line in Kyoto.
- Rail, Road and Feeder Canals: Branch rail lines connected Kyoto to the Tōkaidō Main Line, while expanded roadways and secondary canals improved the flow of goods and raw materials. In 1895, Kyoto introduced the country's first commercial electric railway, powered by Lake Biwa Canal hydroelectricity.
- Municipal Annexations: To secure land for factories, worker housing and public amenities, Kyoto expanded its boundaries in two stages. In 1918 and again in 1931, the city absorbed the neighboring towns of Fushimi, Kii, Kadono and Otagi, extending its jurisdiction beyond the medieval inner wards (rakuchū) into the outer suburbs (rakugai).
Adoption of western architectural style
Public buildings from the late Meiji era incorporated European and American design elements as symbols of modernity:
- Ryukoku University Main Hall: A brick-and-timber structure was closely influenced by British collegiate architecture and completed in 1879.
- Kyoto National Museum: It was completed in 1895 and was built in a French Second Empire style. At the time, this sparked criticism from local observers who saw the design as culturally discordant, particularly given Kyoto's historical role as the imperial capital.
The modern city of Kyoto was officially formed on April 1, 1889, and by 1932, the population of the city exceeded one million.
Contemporary history
There was some consideration by the United States of targeting Kyoto with an atomic bomb at the end of World War II because of the possibility that the city's importance was great enough that its loss might persuade Japan to surrender. In the end, at the insistence of Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, the city was removed from the list of targets and replaced by Nagasaki. The city was largely spared from conventional bombing as well, although small-scale air raids did result in casualties. During the occupation, the U.S. Sixth Army and I Corps were headquartered in Kyoto.
As a result, Kyoto is one of the few Japanese cities that still have an abundance of prewar buildings, such as the traditional townhouses known as machiya. However, modernization is continually breaking down traditional Kyoto in favor of newer architecture, such as the Kyōto Station complex.
Kyoto became a city designated by government ordinance on September 1, 1956. In 1994, 17 historic monuments in Kyoto were inscribed on the list as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 1997, Kyoto hosted the conference that resulted in the protocol on greenhouse gas emissions (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).
Geography
Topography
Kyoto is located in a valley, part of the Yamashiro (or Kyoto) Basin, in the eastern part of the mountainous region known as the Tamba highlands. The Yamashiro Basin is surrounded on three sides by mountains known as Higashiyama, Kitayama and Nishiyama (literally "east mountain", "north mountain" and "west mountain" respectively), with a maximum height of approximately 1,000 meters (3,281 ft) above sea level. This interior positioning results in hot summers and cold winters. There are three rivers in the basin, the Uji River to the south, the Katsura River to the west, and the Kamo River to the east. Kyoto City takes up 17.9% of the land in Kyoto Prefecture and has a total area of 827.9 square kilometers (319.7 sq mi).
Kyoto sits atop a large natural water table that provides the city with ample freshwater wells. Due to large-scale urbanization, the amount of rain draining into the table is dwindling and wells across the area are drying at an increasing rate.
Climate
Kyoto has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa), featuring a marked seasonal variation in temperature and precipitation. Summers are hot and humid, but winters are relatively cold with occasional snowfall. Kyoto's rainy season begins around the middle of June and lasts until the end of July, yielding to a hot and sunny latter half of the summer. Kyoto is often affected by rain from typhoons during the summer and autumn.
Cityscape
Kyoto contains roughly 2,000 temples and shrines. The main business district is located to the south of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. In the center of the city, there are several covered shopping arcades only open to pedestrian traffic, such as Teramachi Street and Shinkyōgoku Street.
The original city was arranged in accordance with traditional Chinese feng shui following the model of the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an/Luoyang. The Imperial Palace faced south, resulting in Ukyō (the right sector of the capital) being on the west, while Sakyō (the left sector) is on the east. The streets in the modern-day wards of Kamigyō-ku, Nakagyō-ku, and Shimogyō-ku still follow a grid pattern. Areas outside of the city center do not follow the same grid pattern, though streets throughout Kyoto are referred to by name, a practice that is rare in most regions of Japan.
Administration
Local Government
The city of Kyoto is governed by the mayor of Kyoto and the Kyoto City Assembly, a municipal council.
Kyoto City Assembly
The legislative city assembly has 67 elected members, and terms are four years in length. As of 2024, the assembly is controlled by a coalition of members affiliated with the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito, and the Democratic Civic Forum.
List of mayors
Between the founding of the modern city and 1898, the governor of Kyoto Prefecture also acted as the mayor of the city of Kyoto. From 1898 through the Second World War, mayors were nominated by the Kyoto City Assembly and appointed by the Minister of Home Affairs.
Since 1947, mayors of Kyoto have been chosen by direct election to four-year terms. As of 2024, there have been ten mayors elected using this system. While some mayors have resigned or died in office, no mayor has lost a reelection bid in the postwar period. In the 2024 Kyoto mayoral election, independent candidate Koji Matsui was elected for the first time, supported by the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito, the Constitutional Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party for the People.
Wards
In the 1870s, the city was divided into a northern ward (Kamigyō-ku) and a southern ward (Shimogyō-ku), each working as individual administrative divisions of Kyoto Prefecture. The modern municipality was created by the unification of these wards into the city of Kyoto in 1889.
Due to the creation of new administrative districts and a number of municipal mergers that took place between the 1920s and the 1970s, the contemporary city of Kyoto is divided into eleven wards (区, ku). The central wards, located to the west of the Kamo River, are small and densely populated. The city hall is located in Nakagyō-ku, and the Kyoto prefectural offices are located in present-day Kamigyō-ku.
Demographics
Kyoto was the largest city in Japan until the late 16th century, when its population was surpassed by those of Osaka and Edo. Before World War II, Kyoto vied with Kobe and Nagoya to rank as the fourth- or fifth-largest city in Japan. Having avoided most wartime destruction, it was again the third-largest city in 1947. By 1960 it had fallen to fifth again, and by 1990 it had fallen to seventh. As of January 2022, it was the ninth-largest city in Japan by population and had led the country in population decrease for two consecutive years. However, the population of the city rises during standard working hours, and Kyoto ranks seventh in Japan in terms of daytime population.
Approximately 55% of the total population of Kyoto Prefecture is concentrated in the city of Kyoto, which is the highest ratio among the prefectures of Japan.
Economy
Information technology and electronics are key industries in Kyoto. The city is home to the headquarters of Nintendo, Intelligent Systems, SCREEN Holdings, Tose, Hatena, Omron, Kyocera, Shimadzu, Rohm Semiconductor, Horiba, Nidec Corporation, Nichicon, Nissin Electric, and GS Yuasa.