Yamanote and Shitamachi

Common card · No. 357138

Yamanote (山の手; Japanese pronunciation: [jä̀.mä́.nó̞.té̞, -tè̞]) and Shitamachi (下町; [ɕi̥.tä́.mä́.c̟͡ɕí]) are traditional names for two areas of Tokyo, Japan. Yamanote refers to the affluent, upper-class areas of Tokyo west of the Imperial Palace. While citizens once considered it as consisting of Hongo, Kōjimachi, Koishikawa, Ushigome, Yotsuya, Akasaka, Aoyama and Azabu in the Bunkyō, Chiyoda, Shinjuku, and Minato wards, in popular conception, the area extended westwards to include the Nakano, Suginami, and Meguro wards after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Shitamachi is the traditional name for the area of Tokyo including today the Adachi, Arakawa, certain neighbourhoods in Chiyoda, Chūō, Edogawa, Katsushika, Kōtō, Sumida, and Taitō wards, the physically low part of the city along and east of the Sumida River, mostly consisted of commercial areas and chonin residential areas during the Edo period. The two regions have always been vaguely defined, as their identity was more based on...

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