Why is Tokyo the world's largest urban area? (38 million people!) 

What other city would you like me to do a "History of..." video about?

Extra impressive when you consider how many times it's been destroyed by Godzilla

You must go visit Tokyo also. It is truly mind blowing how well run, clean and quiet it is. Even as someone who lived in hyper-organized southern Germany I was blown away. Really the most fascinating metropolis and a blueprint for the rest of our world

Your work ethic is impressive! Especially with kids and Ph.D studies!

Worlds largest city. Also one of the safest.

That backdrop of a Snow Covered Mt. Fuji certainly adds to the appeal.

History of Pyongyang! Considered the oldest city in Korea, capital of various Korean kingdoms. It’s filled with history

It would be interesting to add the reason why in Japan's main island all the largest cities are on the ocean side (Pacific) instead of in the continent (sea of Japan) side, unlike almost every island in the world. The Japan Sea coast also has large plains (Echigo, Kanzawa, Fukui, Toyama, Tonami plains, etc.) with rich soil, thriving agriculture, cheap energy, easy access to raw materials and a well developed industry. Despite that, the heavy snowfall caused by the cold fronts from Siberia meeting the warm waters from the Sea of Japan has always made life in those areas difficult, isolating these cities from the rest of Japan every winter. The combination of a fertile but isolated area can be seen on the higher prefecture income and family savings on the region. Interestingly, on the south island of Kyushu, where snow is not a problem, the large cities are all facing the continent (China/Korea) instead of the Pacific Ocean.

It amazes me how much we aren't taught about in school. Tokyo is probably my favorite city, but being from the US I knew almost nothing about it before I went the first time.

Did anyone else see No Face at 5:28 ?

Population densities: Tokyo city ~ 38 million California state ~ 39 million Canada country ~ 37 million

"Edo continued growing into a new era" - population drops from 1.2 million to

I’m looking forward to their Summer Olympics next year (2020). Tokyo’s going to get a lot more crowded then.

When a population of a city is almost the same as your entire country 😂😂😂

Q: Why is Tokyo the world's largest urban area? A: Because it has the most people.

90s kids remember when it was *Edooo*

It is also one of the most human friendly cities in the world. Beautiful and intimate, cosmopolitan and fun, imaginative and raucous.filled with amazing architecture.

3:50 a wild pikachu appeared

Year 2200, Tokyo has expanded to entirety of Japan and now the entire country is one city. EDIT: I forgot about the population drop

I’ve been to Tokyo before and I was amazed to see big it is but it is not just big it is one of the cleanest cities I have ever been.

I've never been there, but I always thought Tokyo looked like one of the coolest cities in the world. If not THE coolest city in the world.

kantō plains... my inner pokémon is screaming rn

By far my favorite city in the world. Tokyo is incredible. Pretty much the only place I've ever been to that actually feels modern. Japan is lucky.

Add a people whose mindset is to "not be bothersome to others" and you have one of (if not the) cleanest, safest, and most livable overpopulated cities in the world.

It's quite ironic that the lack of central planning allowed Tokyo to be the biggest and densest metropolis in the world. No strict separation of land use into residential/commercial/industrial, no minimum parking requirements, not nationalizing most of the commuter lines (which keep them competitive and actually spurred the growth of bed-towns developed by the train operator companies themselves), no strict building regulations (which lets the market quickly adjust to housing demands). The private train line ban from entering Central Tokyo (i.e. within the Yamanote Line) unintentionally created new city centers at the termini of the lines e.g. Shinjuku. And when new planned towns were build on West Tokyo mass transit was factored into, and the private train companies extended their lines into these towns. Sorry that I sound a bit repetitive. Tokyo is a very fascinating place for me in terms of its infrastructure.

Tokyo is incredibly overwhelming. It's amazingly well run and people are quite polite, except with those umbrellas (watch you eyeballs)! That said, it was the least favorite part of my Japan trip. I think if you're someone who easily feels unsettled or agitated by sensory input, you will struggle. The countryside or even other "smaller" cities were amazing to see. Also, it's astonishing how few international tourists step outside Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. I was literally the only foreigner in some places, which is hard to believe for a country as amazing as Japan.

I love how dense, walkable and interesting Tokyo is as a city, but i also hate the haphazard, confusing street planning.

Tokyo is an amazing city, you have to visit it to truly appreciate its magnitude. I enjoyed every moment whilst I was there.

This is probably my favourite video of yours until now. I'd love to see more of this new series, history of cities from a city planner's perspective. Istanbul, Rome and Athens are cities that may have a lot of interesting to tell.

I loved the overall design and visual of the video. Extremely well done, you used all the screen for a lot of information, and yet it seems very clean and elegant.

This video is so well done! The timing of the narration with the population ticker is superb!

4:04 Edo: *population drops by 500,000* "Edo continued to grow"

The system of alternate attendance by lords and the hostage taking of their family was called Sankin Kotai, or the 250 year hostage crisis

Tokyo is amazing city, awesome video! everyone should go there at least once

Amazing that you make sure high quality videos while being a father and a PHD student

Tokyo Metropolitan Area is really unique. It consists of 8 prefectures (Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Gunma, Yamanashi, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Tokyo) that include the top two populated cities in Japan (Tokyo and Yokohama). You can't find something like this at anywhere.

What happens in 1850 around 4:05? The population shrinks by like half

Waddup from Fairfax, VA!!! Lol I had no idea a map of my hometown would randomly pop up in a video about Tokyo

That Mewtwo you inserted in this video was a really nice touch! That got me rolling.

Do one on Shenzhen. If you combine it with Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan and Hong Kong, It becomes just as large if not more than Tokyo. Once they complete the sections of the subway in Dongguan, you can literally take the subway (with multiple transfers) from Hong Kong to Foshan via Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guanzhou.

Very interesting to see the progression of the urban planning and its timeline. Thanks for posting and good luck with working towards your PhD.

4:04 found pikachu

exactly the video i asked for a while ago. Thank you City Beautiful!! loved it

been waiting for this

Incredible city. One of my favorite places that I've visited.

And Tokyo continues to grow in population as more people migrate into the city. One factor in its continued growth is the changing demographics. Japan's population is turning more elderly as they increase in percentage. Cities offer more social services and access to healthcare that they need. One thing that Americans would be most shocked is that everything is smaller, the streets, houses, cars. Yet it is surprisingly livable.

You make these vids so interesting for the subject.

this is awesome. thanks for these videos!

LOVE THIS! Please do more cites, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Cairo etc...

A bit off topic but... oh my gosh! your new kid is so adorable!

whoa, so much info and events that need to watch this 3 times.

Great content , keep up the good work.

I really love this video because they show a lot of dedication on it, and also all this details as the easter eggs, "fun facts", speech balloons... and your new kid!! Apart for that two things: First, that my country is really small in population (Chile, .447 Tokyos), and second, the easter eggs are in 2:50 4:00 4:46 5:28 9:20 and 9:55

loved Tokyo when I went there and would love to go again!

I love this video man! Thank you

I had to watch this video more than two times, amazing!

Congrats on your baby!!! :) Coming back to the Bay was truly cruel after living in Yokohama for a year and getting everywhere on clean, timely trains, but at least we get the fleet of the future cars now lol. I got sooo spoiled.

What a great day. City beautiful and CGP Grey (and bb21) on the same day!

Great video!

thanks this video single handedly helped me with my social study's assignment

I live near Fairfax, Va, so cool to see the zoning map since I know the area so well!

haha did anyone notice there's a Pokemon in the seemingly Classical Japanese painting 4:46?

Great video

amazing vid man

What a wonderful episode!! Really appreciate your work!! Can you do “History of Hong Kong”? I grew up there. It is not the biggest city or anything like that. However, it’s urbanism is pretty up there. Almost all area are mixed used. We have high rises residential buildings right on top of shopping plaza, which is right on top on metro and bus station. When there is a hurricane going on, you won’t need to bring an umbrella and still won’t get wet. Would love to hear your review and feedback on Hong Kong’s urban planning. Thanks in advance!

11:12. Hey! That’s my hometown!

Congratulations on the new addition to the family!

Greatly educational, thanks.

4:03 Pika!

4:46 a wild MewTwo has appeared

Great stuff.

I like that your videos don’t have background music. Quite a brave move, that’s worked out well.

4:39 woah woah woah, they didnt END their isolation policy willingly, saying that in your way is almost an insult to japanese history, yes it helped them but their culture was violated in many ways too

"Tahkoogahwa Eye-YasOooOo" "Aido"

Love the bright pink bong in the background 12:23

Thanks for doing the history of the place I currently call home!

At 4:03 the population count starts dropping precipitously, but it's not remarked on. Is this a mistake?

Japan was electrifying their railways before it was cool. Despite this, their last steam locomotives were retired in 1974.

This is cool. You should do more videos like this

This is one of your best videos! As a history/government/social science teacher, I may be biased though.

So how many more years before the entirety of Japan is consumed by Tokyo?

Greater Jakarta: *hold my beer pletok, kerak telor and cilor*

I love this vídeo!

Great video! i love the pictures you included as well. May i ask where you got those cool illustrations of Tokyo that occurred during 9:54 minutes and 10:08 minutes in the video?

Not gonna lie, wouldnt mind if all cities and human population centers replicated Tokyo

City Beautiful: Tokyo is world's largest urban Area Mexico City: Let me introduce the megalopolis...

I'm actually addicted to these videos

Love this video! Would love to see your breakdown of the original circular city of Baghdad

It always amazes me that one single city can have exact same population as Poland. And yet in couple of years it won't be the biggest in the world!

0:56 that looks very similar to something you shouldn't put on ur head

this was really interesting!

would love like a 3 hour version of this

1:00 The Shogun’s got a ShoGUN on his head, if yknow what I mean

Just a little thing to improve your Japanese pronunciation is that Japanese is a syllabic language where each letter has the same sound each time for example Tō ku ga wa There should be some videos on youtube on how to pronounce all 42 the characters thats only 10 mins long

First video I've seen from this channel, took me all of 30 seconds to hit subscribe.

2:50 Cat bus from my neighbour totoro, nice cute thing you put there.

One city has 8 times the population of Ireland...

Could you do another transportation related video

When City Beautiful and Geoff upload on the same day

Your content is the best ever I have never seen something like it I mean look at the details on the video this is hard to do .