The Legacy of Tokyo’s Abundant Parks and Gardens

Every great city has an equally great park that seems to encapsulate the very essence of its home metropolis, like London’s Hyde Park or New York’s Central Park. Tokyo, on the other hand, boasts multiple amazing green spaces, including the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden or Yoyogi Park, but are they really representative of the whole Japanese capital?

Walking among those green spaces in Tokyo, you may start to understand that Tokyo gardens are different than the ones in Kyoto or Nara. There’s an air of competition to them. It’s almost like they’re trying to upstage each other. You see, when Tokyo was still Edo, most of it was taken up by samurai residences, with those of the top feudal lords vying to have the most beautiful park or garden around. These so-called “daimyo-teien” numbered in the hundreds, perhaps even in the thousands, and they have influenced most of Tokyo’s modern park culture.

Some of the grandest daimyo-teien still stand today, like the Rikugien Gardens, the Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens, or the Higo-Hosokawa Garden (formerly the Shin-Edogawa Garden.) The Tokyo National Museum Garden and teahouse has normally been open to the public for short periods during the spring and summer. Beginning last June, though, it will now be open year-round. And to make the area even more enjoyable, it’s said the garden will soon a central pond as elegant as the museum itself.

Instead of one green symbol, Tokyo seems to have many smaller parks that illustrate the individual charms of the city’s areas. There’s Shinjuku Central Park, which recently became home to the SHUKNOVA facility where you can enjoy yoga, bouldering, café and lunch while being surrounded by a calming verdant oasis. MIYASHITA PARK in Shibuya also has been renewed this year, mixing nature with that familiar Shibuya zeal for fashion and commerce. In autumn, at long last, the brand-new location IKE・SUNPARK has joined the "four parks around Ikebukuro Station", completing the ambitious project.

Green Map by Tokyo Metropolitan Greening Fund
https://www.tokyo-park.or.jp/profile/greening/pdf/machinami_2.pdf

Find your Green Tokyo! Project
https://www.asahi.com/ads/fygt/en/

Tokyo National Museum Garden
https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=121&lang=en

SHUKNOVA in Shinjuku Central Park
https://shuknova.com/ (Japanese)

IKE・SUNPARK in Ikebukuro
https://ikesunpark.jp/ (Japanese)