Tokyo - World's Most Populous Metropolitan Area

Tokyo - World's Most Populous Metropolitan Area

Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō), officially Tokyo Metropolis (東京都 Tōkyō-to), is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. Tokyo's government also administers the twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, that cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture.

The population of the special wards is over 8 million people, with the total population of the prefecture exceeding 12 million. The prefecture is the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, the world's most populous metropolitan area with 35 to 39 million people (depending on definition) and the world's largest metropolitan economy with a GDP of US$1.479 trillion at purchasing power parity in 2008.

Tokyo was described by Saskia Sassen as one of the three "command centers" for the world economy, along with London and New York City. This city is considered an alpha+ world city, listed by the GaWC's 2008 inventory and ranked fourth among global cities by Foreign Policy's 2008 Global Cities Index. In 2009 Tokyo was named the world's most expensive city for expatriate employees, according to the Mercer and Economist Intelligence Unit cost-of-living surveys and named the third Most Liveable City and the World’s Most Livable Megalopolis by the magazine Monocle.

Tokyo is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family.

Geography and administrative divisions

The mainland portion of Tokyo lies northwest of Tokyo Bay and measures about 90 km east to west and 25 km north to south. Chiba Prefecture borders it to the east, Yamanashi to the west, Kanagawa to the south, and Saitama to the north. Mainland Tokyo is further subdivided into the special wards (occupying the eastern half) and the Tama area (多摩地域) stretching westwards.

Also within the administrative boundaries of Tokyo Metropolis are two island chains in the Pacific Ocean directly south: the Izu Islands, and the Ogasawara Islands, which stretch more than 1,000 km away from the mainland. Because of these islands and mountainous regions to the west, Tokyo's overall population density figures far underrepresent the real figures for urban and suburban regions of Tokyo.

Under Japanese law, Tokyo is designated as a to (都), translated as metropolis. Its administrative structure is similar to that of Japan's other prefectures. Within Tokyo lie dozens of smaller entities, most of them conventionally referred to as cities. It includes twenty-three special wards (特別区 -ku) which until 1943 comprised the city of Tokyo but are now separate, self-governing municipalities, each with a mayor and a council, and having the status of a city.

In addition to these 23 municipalities, Tokyo also encompasses 26 more cities (市 -shi), five towns (町 -chō or machi), and eight villages (村 -son or -mura), each of which has a local government. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is headed by a publicly elected governor and metropolitan assembly. Its headquarters are in the ward of Shinjuku. They govern all of Tokyo, including lakes, rivers, dams, farms, remote islands, and national parks in addition to its neon jungles, skyscrapers and crowded subways.

Demographics

As of October 2007, the official intercensal estimate showed 12.79 million people in Tokyo with 8.653 million living within Tokyo's 23 wards. During the daytime, the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and students commute from adjacent areas. This effect is even more pronounced in the three central wards of Chiyoda, Chūō, and Minato, whose collective population as of the 2005 National Census was 326,000 at night, but 2.4 million during the day.

The entire prefecture had 12,790,000 residents in October 2007 (8,653,000 in 23 wards), with an increase of over 3 million in the day. Tokyo is at its highest population ever, while that of the 23 wards peak official count was 8,893,094 in the 1965 Census, with the count dipping below 8 million in the 1995 Census. People continue to move back into the core city as land prices have fallen dramatically.

As of 2005, the most common foreign nationalities found in Tokyo are Chinese (123,661), Korean (106,697), Filipino (31,077), American (18,848), British (7,696), Brazilian (5,300) and French (3,000).

List of metropolitan areas by population

The question of which are the world's largest cities is a complex one, to which there is no single correct answer, simply because there are many different ways of defining a "city".

One concept is that of the metropolitan area, which is based on the concept of a labor market area and is typically defined as an employment core (an area with a high density of available jobs) and the surrounding areas that have strong commuting ties to the core. There is currently no generally accepted, globally consistent definition of exactly what constitutes a metropolitan area, thus making comparisons between cities in different countries especially difficult.

One attempt at arriving at a consistently defined metropolitan area concept is the study by Richard Forstall, Richard Greene, and James Pick. The basic principles of their definition involve delineating the urban area as the core, then adding surrounding communities that meet two criteria: (1) Less than 35% of the resident workforce must be engaged in agriculture or fishing; and (2) At least 20% of the working residents commute to the urban core. Based on their consistently defined metropolitan area criteria, they tabulate a list of the twenty largest metropolitan areas in 2003. As population figures are interpreted and presented differently according to different methods of data collection, definitions and sources, these numbers should be viewed as approximate. Data from other sources may be equally valid but differ due to being measured according to different criteria or taken from different census years.

Architecture in Tokyo has largely been shaped by Tokyo's history. Twice in recent history has the metropolis been left in ruins: first in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and later after extensive firebombing in World War II. Because of this, Tokyo's current urban landscape is one of modern and contemporary architecture, and older buildings are scarce.

Tokyo also contains numerous parks and gardens.

 
Source 

Read more »

Tokyo - World's Most Populous Metropolitan Area

Tokyo - World's Most Populous Metropolitan Area

Tokyo (東京 Tōkyō), officially Tokyo Metropolis (東京都 Tōkyō-to), is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. Tokyo's government also administers the twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, that cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture.

The population of the special wards is over 8 million people, with the total population of the prefecture exceeding 12 million. The prefecture is the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, the world's most populous metropolitan area with 35 to 39 million people (depending on definition) and the world's largest metropolitan economy with a GDP of US$1.479 trillion at purchasing power parity in 2008.

Tokyo was described by Saskia Sassen as one of the three "command centers" for the world economy, along with London and New York City. This city is considered an alpha+ world city, listed by the GaWC's 2008 inventory and ranked fourth among global cities by Foreign Policy's 2008 Global Cities Index. In 2009 Tokyo was named the world's most expensive city for expatriate employees, according to the Mercer and Economist Intelligence Unit cost-of-living surveys and named the third Most Liveable City and the World’s Most Livable Megalopolis by the magazine Monocle.

Tokyo is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family.

Geography and administrative divisions

The mainland portion of Tokyo lies northwest of Tokyo Bay and measures about 90 km east to west and 25 km north to south. Chiba Prefecture borders it to the east, Yamanashi to the west, Kanagawa to the south, and Saitama to the north. Mainland Tokyo is further subdivided into the special wards (occupying the eastern half) and the Tama area (多摩地域) stretching westwards.

Also within the administrative boundaries of Tokyo Metropolis are two island chains in the Pacific Ocean directly south: the Izu Islands, and the Ogasawara Islands, which stretch more than 1,000 km away from the mainland. Because of these islands and mountainous regions to the west, Tokyo's overall population density figures far underrepresent the real figures for urban and suburban regions of Tokyo.

Under Japanese law, Tokyo is designated as a to (都), translated as metropolis. Its administrative structure is similar to that of Japan's other prefectures. Within Tokyo lie dozens of smaller entities, most of them conventionally referred to as cities. It includes twenty-three special wards (特別区 -ku) which until 1943 comprised the city of Tokyo but are now separate, self-governing municipalities, each with a mayor and a council, and having the status of a city.

In addition to these 23 municipalities, Tokyo also encompasses 26 more cities (市 -shi), five towns (町 -chō or machi), and eight villages (村 -son or -mura), each of which has a local government. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is headed by a publicly elected governor and metropolitan assembly. Its headquarters are in the ward of Shinjuku. They govern all of Tokyo, including lakes, rivers, dams, farms, remote islands, and national parks in addition to its neon jungles, skyscrapers and crowded subways.

Demographics

As of October 2007, the official intercensal estimate showed 12.79 million people in Tokyo with 8.653 million living within Tokyo's 23 wards. During the daytime, the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and students commute from adjacent areas. This effect is even more pronounced in the three central wards of Chiyoda, Chūō, and Minato, whose collective population as of the 2005 National Census was 326,000 at night, but 2.4 million during the day.

The entire prefecture had 12,790,000 residents in October 2007 (8,653,000 in 23 wards), with an increase of over 3 million in the day. Tokyo is at its highest population ever, while that of the 23 wards peak official count was 8,893,094 in the 1965 Census, with the count dipping below 8 million in the 1995 Census. People continue to move back into the core city as land prices have fallen dramatically.

As of 2005, the most common foreign nationalities found in Tokyo are Chinese (123,661), Korean (106,697), Filipino (31,077), American (18,848), British (7,696), Brazilian (5,300) and French (3,000).

List of metropolitan areas by population

The question of which are the world's largest cities is a complex one, to which there is no single correct answer, simply because there are many different ways of defining a "city".

One concept is that of the metropolitan area, which is based on the concept of a labor market area and is typically defined as an employment core (an area with a high density of available jobs) and the surrounding areas that have strong commuting ties to the core. There is currently no generally accepted, globally consistent definition of exactly what constitutes a metropolitan area, thus making comparisons between cities in different countries especially difficult.

One attempt at arriving at a consistently defined metropolitan area concept is the study by Richard Forstall, Richard Greene, and James Pick. The basic principles of their definition involve delineating the urban area as the core, then adding surrounding communities that meet two criteria: (1) Less than 35% of the resident workforce must be engaged in agriculture or fishing; and (2) At least 20% of the working residents commute to the urban core. Based on their consistently defined metropolitan area criteria, they tabulate a list of the twenty largest metropolitan areas in 2003. As population figures are interpreted and presented differently according to different methods of data collection, definitions and sources, these numbers should be viewed as approximate. Data from other sources may be equally valid but differ due to being measured according to different criteria or taken from different census years.

Architecture in Tokyo has largely been shaped by Tokyo's history. Twice in recent history has the metropolis been left in ruins: first in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and later after extensive firebombing in World War II. Because of this, Tokyo's current urban landscape is one of modern and contemporary architecture, and older buildings are scarce.

Tokyo also contains numerous parks and gardens.

 
Source 

Read more »

World's Most Dangerous Places To Live Cause By Mother Nature

World's Most Dangerous Places To Live Cause By Mother Nature

Nature is the home in which you can find out many exiting and dangerous places. Most dangerous places on the earth include volcano eruption valleys, cold places, mountains, lakes and thick dense forests. All these places make life incredible difficult for human beings. It is important to know about all these places before going there. In recent years, many people relocated from these places to safe areas. Our mother nature has many things which are not known to most people and dangerous places are one among those unknown things. This article gives best information on nine most dangerous places on the earth.

Mt Vesuvius Volcano, Campania, Italy

It is one of the world’s most dangerous and worst volcanoes. Normally a volcano erupts or explodes once in twenty years, but the last eruption of this volcano was in 1944. Mount Vesuvius is located in Campania, Italy. Millions of people are living close to this volcano. By chance, if volcano erupts, then many people will lose their lives. So in recent years, an attempt has been made to relocate some residents to non explosive location. In 79 AD an explosion of this volcano destroyed Pompeii and remains as popular tourist location in south of Napoli.

The Cold Pole, Verkhoyansk, Russia

Verkhoyansk is treated as coldest city in the world. It is also called as the Cold Pole. It best suits its nickname as Cold Pole especially from September to March. In this period, its average sunlight is lesser than 5 hours a day. In December and January, there is no sunlight at all. Temperature in winter ranges from minus 40 to minus 60 Fahrenheit. Nowadays, this city is attracting many “extreme tourists,” because of its cold nature. The population of Verkhoyansk is nearly 2500 residents.

Mount Merapi, Indonesia

Mount Merapi is famously called as mountain of fire. Even at peace time, smoke continuously comes from its entrance at the height of 10,000 feet in the blue sky. It is located on the island of Java, smolders. Its name gets changed to “Fire Mountain,” when it is translated to English language. In the past 500 years, it has exploded around 60 times. Its recent explosion is in the year 2006.When it was exploded in 1994, it released dangerous cloud of warm gas that took 60 people in to d-e-a-t-h. In the year of 1930, this Merapi spread lava more than 8 square miles and succumbed 1000 people in to d-e-a-t-h.

Every time Merapi erupts, death toll increases. This is because many people are living very close to this volcano. The bad news is that approximately 2 lakh villagers live within 4 miles of this volcanic mountain. It is the best example for active volcanoes.

 Haiti

It is the first tropical storm struck on August 16. A week after the first storm, Hurricane Gustav blew Gonaïves city causing great damage. Two storms Hurricane Hanna and Hurricane Ike followed this. With in the time of one month, the Gonaïves is one of the largest cities of Haiti, and receiving end of 4 unforgettable tropical cyclones. At the end of last storm, the Gonaïves city practically cleaned out to sea. Whole city was filled with mud and dirty water and became Mini Island. In some areas of the city, the amount of water is up to 12 feet height. The number of people died in this event was close to 500. The d-e-a-d-l-i-e-s-t hurricane that Gonaïves come across in recent history is in the year 2008. In the year of 2004, the Gonaïves city took great damage from Hurricane Jeanne making 104,000 people homeless. It affected almost 100 percent population. 3000 people d-i-e-d in this incident.

Addition: This year (2010) Haiti earthquake left 100,000 d-e-a-d in 60 seconds - and toll could reach 500,000!!!

Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo/Rwanda

Lake Kivu, popularly called as D-e-a-t-h Lake of Africa is located along the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Its depth is 2700 square miles. At this depth below the earth there is 2.3 trillion of methane gas, along with 60 cubic miles of carbon dioxide under the pressure of both water and earth. In case if this gas explodes it causes great damage to 2 million African people who are residing close to this lake. Approximately 1700 people k-i-l-l-e-d in this incident by exposing to toxic gases. It is found that these activities occur due to the volcanic activities below the lake, which release dangerous hot gases.

The Ephemeral Isles, the Maldives

Maldives consists of 1190 islands and are close to the Indian Ocean. An ephemeral isle is one mini island and its highest is little more than 6 feet. In near future it is likely to be swallowed by the rising sea levels. After tsunami in Indian Ocean in 2004, the United States Geological Survey conducted an assessment and called Maldives is one the earth’s youngest land masses with lesser life time.

Hurricane Capital of the World, Grand Cayman

The Cayman Islands, Hurricane Capital of the World is a British territory located 150 miles south of Cuba. According to the reports from the tropical-storm-tracking website hurricanecity.com, Grand Cayman is the largest among three Cayman isles. It is hit by at least one hurricane every 2.16 years. Since 1871, 64 storms have battered this location. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan, a Category 5 storm struck this city at a speed of 150 miles per hour, dumping a foot of rain on Grand Cayman.70 percent of the island’s buildings were destroyed in this event.

The I-44 Tornado Corridor, Oklahoma City/Tulsa, Oklahoma

Since 1890, more than 120 cyclones struck Oklahoma City which has a population of 700,000 approximately. In 1999, 70 tornados struck the Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas destroying 9000 homes altogether. It caused damage more than 1 billion in addition to the lost lives. One more city called Tulsa is present at the north east of Oklahoma which is experiencing its own share of cyclones. 69 tornados struck this city between 1950 and 2006. Tulsa is extremely vulnerable to rain water which is accompanied by Oklahoma’s bad weather.

China’s Creeping Sandbox, Minquin County, China

Minquin County, the creeping sandbox of china is located in the northwest Gansu province of china. Decade long drought and upriver diversion of water from Shiyang River have left Minquin in to tengger desert. Since from 1950, this desert swallowed more than 100 square miles. Studies in 2004 showed that it is swallowing at the rate of 10 meters per year. It produces dust and wind for more than 130 days in a year making it most d-e-a-d-l-y desert in the china. Due to its rapid desertification, the Chinese government ordered his farmers to relocate to safer places.

Source

Read more »