Kyoto

Kyoto (京都市) is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.

Symbol of Kyoto

Heian-kyō (平安京 "tranquility and peace capital"), became the seat of Japan's imperial court in 794. In the 11th century, the city was renamed Kyoto ("capital city"). Kyoto remained Japan's capital until the transfer of the government to Edo in 1868 at the time of the Imperial Restoration. After Edo was renamed Tokyo (meaning "Eastern Capital"), Kyoto was known for a short time as Saikyō (西京, "Western Capital").

The city suffered extensive destruction in the Ōnin War of 1467-1477, and did not really recover until the mid-16th century. Battles between samurai factions spilled into the streets, and came to involve the court nobility 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. Although there was some consideration by the United States of targeting Kyoto with an atomic bomb at the end of World War II, in the end it was decided to remove the city from the list of targets because, as an intellectual center of Japan, it had a population "better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon." The city was spared from conventional bombing as well.

As a result, Kyoto is the only large Japanese city that still has an abundance of prewar buildings, such as the traditional townhouses known as machiya. However, modernization is continually breaking down the traditional Kyoto in favor of newer architecture, such as the Kyoto Station complex.

Kyoto Station

Kyoto became a city designated by government ordinance on September 1, 1956. In 1997, Kyoto hosted the conference that resulted in the protocol on greenhouse gas emissions that bears the city's name.

A common English pronunciation of Kyoto has three syllables as /key-oh-toe/ [kʰi'otəʊ]; however, the Japanese pronunciation has only two: [kʲoːto].