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Kyoto was removed from the list of cities where the atomic bomb could be dropped because one of the officials making the list went there before on a honeymoon and loved it.
The reasons for Kyoto's removal from that list is a subject of debate, there's no evidence that Henry Stimson had his honeymoon there. He did visit the city later on but he cited the city's historical, religious and cultural significance in his argument to have the Kyoto removed from the list. Stories of him honeymooning there seem to have come from later and again, there's nothing to back that up
Nice video! Thanks for covering the history. Kyoto is practically in the valley, with hotter summers and colder winters. For anyone visiting, I recommend spring or fall, colder days. You can layer up, and the crowd makes your surroundings warmer, but nobody can escape the hot humid summer with a crowd.
Before Kyoto, the capital of Japan was where the Emperor was. If he took a fancy to a particular town and decided to settle there, bang, instant capital status. The curious thing is that Tokyo was never really officially declared an imperial capital when the emperor relocated there, leading Kyotoites to joke that the Emperor is on an extended business trip...
This is very much how capital cities were in Europe in the same time period. A ruler traveled from town to town with his warriors to collect taxes and remind the locals who was in charge. Only in later period when the administration grew there was a need for permanent offices but also the kings no longer needed to constantly be everywhere in person.
If you speak Japanese you would understand that Kyo means capital. To is city. Kyoto literally means Capital city. In the other hands, Tou means East. Tokyo (it’s written as Toukyou in Japanese) means East side of the capital city, Tokyo is just the extended Kyoto.
@@phunweng962 Same in Chinese, with Nanjing & Beijing meaning 'south' & "north capital" too, but in Japanese I imagine they'll be called Minami-kyo & Kita-kyo
@@lzh4950 No, in Kyoto there's Kami-kyo, Shimo-kyo, U-kyo and Sa-kyo. Which means Up, down left and right. There is also 10 main streets around the capital palace that's called 一条、二条、三条.... 九条. The entire Kyoto is build around the capital historically.
@@lzh4950Usually we would use the onyomi readings, so Beijing would be Hokkyo and Nanjing would be Nankyo, but we prefer to call them Pekin and Nankin respectively.
A lot of comments are surprised by the fact he said that Kyoto did not have the aame fate as Venice and poibt out overtourism. But, it's true outiside of some really specific districts (Gion, Arashiyama and the surrounding of ghe Fushimi Inari) which are overcrowded, the majority of Historical Kyoto tgere are not a lot of tourists, and thousands of beautiful temples are just ignored by tourists. And the majority of Kyoto is the modern city and (outside of the station) there are no touristss there (and majority of Kyoto inhabitants are not working for the tourism industry). I know japanese and foreign media are focusing on this problem, but in reality overtourism is really a problem of overconcentration in few areas. It doesn't compare with Venice.
I lived in Kyoto years ago for college. I was not too far from Fushimi or Momoyama. It's such a historically tidily organized town I'm glad you've taken a look at its design. I miss it, especially places like Arashiyama
As a Bay Area native now living in Kyoto, I'm pleased to see this video and looking forward to the next one about San Francisco! I highly recommend visiting the Honmaru Palace of Nijo Castle, which was recently reopened to the public after a long renovation project. It's by reservation only, which means you have much more room to walk slowly and look closely at all the details compared to the crowded Ninomaru Palace. There is also a really nice introductory video explaining how the current buildings were actually originally the residence of the Katsura branch of the Imperial Family located in the Imperial Palace, as touched upon in this video, and moved to Nijo Castle in the Meiji Period (1890s). As such, it actually has some western-inspired details like the light fixtures in the hallways, even though overall the architecture is styled after the Edo Period. It really drove home for me that even though Kyoto has such a long history, not everything you see now is equally ancient, but it has been rebuilt and repurposed at various times, sometimes modeled after even earlier periods. P.S. Anyone from a certain part of the East Bay will probably also be familiar with Nijo Castle for another reason...
I lived in Japan during Covid amd and it was a great once in a lifetime to visit Kyoto. Normally it's a huge touriet trap and getting around is difficult due to everything being packed, but with so many ppl at home everything was almost empty snd you could see anything you want on your time. If something like that happens again where you live, take advantage of the opportunity.
So great of you to be able to take advantage of a worldwide tragedy! I’m so happy you got to enjoy that meanwhile my study abroad to Kyoto was completely cancelled so I wasn’t able to graduate and ended up dropping out. So happy for you though!!!
What makes these Japanese cities work is the high human density. Something which few Americans will tolerate. The greater suburban complex that is centered on Osaka and reaches west to Hyodo and northeast to Kyoto also encourages car ownership, and there are plenty of Japanese who prefer this over the super-dense city centers. Yet even suburban Japan locates residences much closer together than in the US.
@@ianhomerpura8937Because in such a large country with ample open land, building densely is optional for many American cities. In other nations with higher population densities, they have to build denser to accommodate everyone. That, and the 1950s mentality of "American Dream = big suburban house with needlessly large lawns" never really went away...
I was going to make a comment mentioning the book you recommended, but then you recommended it. I read it in undergrad in an urban history class, and it's a great book.
No, the old name of Kyoto wasn't "Hyankyo". It was "Heiankyō". (usually spelled Heian-kyō, in English, presumably to help people get the pronunciation right) The sounds are H-e-i-a-n-ky-o-o. (translates as peaceful/tranquil capital.Whereas Kyoto basically translates as "capital city". Tokyo="eastern capital", with its old name of Edo, essentially meaning "estuary")
Yasaka Jinja used to be called Gion Sha prior to the Meiji Reformation in 1868. That's why the Gion area is called Gion! It also used to be a combined Temple and Shrine (Buddhist and Shinto) but was forced to choose as part of the Emperor's separation of Buddhism and Shinto, which is why the name changed at the same time!
Trivia: Japan don't have an official capital (de jure: by law) because it is not in the constitution . The capital is where the Emperor and the government are making Tokyo de facto the capital.
I work as a professional tour guide in Kyoto, and I was very impressed with your video! I'm definitely going to buy the paperback of the book recommendation. It's very expensive in JP yen at the moment, though... So much history and culture has formed in its basin for over a thousand years, I think that big bowl shape in the mountains has created a big "culture soup" that's condensed so much history into such a small space. As someone that works in the tourism industry, I certainly think the tourism industry could improve its methods and recommendations for tourists, as certain areas of the city could benefit from more tourists, surprisingly. That's something I'm trying to contribute to making changes for, because I really do think it's a matter that could be alleviated by better logistics and marketing.
I wonder if Kyoto will stand up to overtourism in the future. I was there this year, and I kept hearing that overcrowding of tourists has become a huge problem there in the last few years. I definitely saw it - some of the temples and historic districts were not at all capable of handling the number of people. Everywhere else in Japan was very good at moving dense crowds efficiently, but in Kyoto I kept getting stuck in streets too packed for anyone to move. I went to Fushimi Inari at night, and that was a much better experience.
People say “Southern Japan”or Southern Honshu all the time. It’s an East/West country. Kyoto is Western Japan. Tokyo is Eastern Japan. And the rest is kind of in reference to those two areas (Kansai and Kanto) or named after whatever island they are on. This is kind of because almost all major Japanese cities are on an East/West line on the southern coast of Honshu in a line from Tokyo to Fukuoka.
I've been to Kyoto once ...in early December 2023....just like you I also don't know anything about its history when I visited it....I just know it's the former capital of Japan and so many tourists flock to it annually.
Nobunaga indeed had a "Nijo Castle" but it was not related to the current Nijo Castle, and was actually built in a different part of the city close to the location of today's imperial palace. The current caslte is wholly a construction of the Tokugawa (perhaps inspired by the Hideyoshi's Jurakudai palace, which was nearby.)
As someone who has taken classes discussing the urban design of Kyoto, this was mostly very good. I do think it's important to note that the current golden pavilion is not the original one but a relatively modern structure built after the original pavilion was intentionally destroyed by a crazed monk in the 20th century. There's even a Mishima novel about it!
Tokyo is considered an eastern city in relation to Kyoto, not northern. The east/west thing is part of the cities' identities so I wish that more research was done on that specifically.
Japan didn't really move its seat of power, but rather the Shogunate, who had de facto control, exercised his power from Edo (Tokyo). When the Shogunate fell and the (de facto) power was (temporarily) restored to the Emperor, it was a symbolic choice to relocate the Emperor to where people saw as the place that holds power to show to them that the Emperor is in charge now.
While Kyoto might not have overtourism to the extent Venice has, it still is very much struggling under their weight. Unfortunately, it seems like the vast majority of tourists to Japan just want to see the same few places. The country has so much more to offer, yet 99% of tourists will never know....
I hope you could come to Malaysia and give your honest thoughts of the cities. From Kuala Lumpur, to Putrajaya, and Penang, etc. I consider my country to have bad urban planning as well, lol. And I wish you could give us some of your insights.
Although the original plans did constrain the development of temples in Kyoto proper. There are many temples in the core. For example, the Hongwanji's are close to the current train station which itself is close to the old Rashomon. (They were constructed during the Hideyoshi "era".)
In your map of Kyoto, the tag for Yasaka Shrine is pointing to Kiyomizu Temple. Yasaka Shrine is on the west edge of the green blob north of Kiyomizu Temple. San Francisco doesn’t want Musk around anymore. He’s not worth it. He already gutted the headquarters building a couple of years ago. There’s just a skeleton crew left.
One notable fact about Kyoto: it used to accomodate one of the largest Korean communities before WW2, and to this day its legacy can be seen if you look for it.
Kyoto is a beautiful city. Unfortunately, it has an atrocious public transport system, which makes getting around a nightmare, especially when you consider that all the main attractions are on the outskirts. The subway is incomplete and the buses are chronically overcrowded. There used to be an expansive streetcar network, but it was ripped out in the post-war era. It's really struggling to handle the weight of tourism and locals are getting fed-up.
Found the 2 possible reasons: (1) Kyoto was designed with defense in mind. The placement of certain institutions, including religious buildings, was controlled to maintain the city's security and order. Religious buildings could attract large gatherings of people, which the shogunate wanted to regulate to prevent uprisings or unrest. (2) The shogunate wanted to separate religious authority from political power. By limiting the presence of religious buildings in the capital, the shogunate emphasized that the government, not religious institutions, held the ultimate authority in society. They seem to have been much more intelligent than us at the time in regards to religions
I would say we also really misunderstand the layering that Historic Kyoto has, I mean, whilst yes the grid city was a thing at one point, one forgets that the Chinese style city was almost destroyed in the Ryonin wars of the early Fujiwara Regency... the modern Kyoto is a great mix of different pilgrimage centers, which effectively became cities of their own... thus, one can easily say that the area of Hagiyama-Gion is one neighborhood, whilst the area around Ryoanji and Ginkakuji *(silver-pavilion) is completely a separate entity. also, we often forget the river-side temples of Zuinji and it's surrounding area, which were the center of a fairly early medieval Kyoto with it's gardens forming an existentially different pattern of narrow winding streets... as do we forget the fact that so much of the riverside districts of modern Gion were very working districts of bargemen who would be plying the river, with all the very dense housing and tenements that that entails... you can sometimes see small remnants of that dense city with it's local tiny Shinto shrines (often centered around the various deities of trade) dotted here and there... Kyoto is very much five cities of five different periods built directly upon each other...
Gion and Yasaka Shrine are marked at the wrong place, the actual locations are North of where they're marked in the video. But overall a very informative video!
Interesting point - you reference directions like a foreigner. Japanese (like the residents of Montreal, another NE-SW island) visualise that their island runs east-west; Kyoto/Osaka is the west, Tokyo is the east.
Kyoto is nice, but its public transportation system is utter garbage. Lived in the overall area for 21 years and I really, REALLY don't want to live there. It's utter hell. Why? JR/Hankyu/Kintensu lines are all ok and dandy, no problem. Just massively overcrowded. Tokyo levels of overcrowded, if you can believe it. Much worse than Osaka or Kobe. Subway? Almost non existent. Only a few lines, the newest of them, the Tozai line (East-West) being an utter failure in terms of users. They should have used that money to build a line where it was actually needed: a subway under NishiOoji avenue, in the west, from Saiin Station up north until Ritsumeikan Univ. and the Golden Pavillion. LOTS of people, most of them students and tourists, use that street and right now the overcrowded and unreliable system of RIDICULOUSLY packed buses is insufficient. A subway line there would have served the northwest of downtown, an area that is chronically underserved by public transportation, yet they wasted the money in a line whose customers were already somehow served by pre-existing lines and helped no one, as it brought you from one non-downtown area to another non-downtown area, a route for which there was no demand. This got so bad that the Kyoto municipal government had to apologize, and explain that they were pretty much bankrupt in 2022 because of it and because of the pandemic. This caused tourist numbers, both national and foreigner, to plummet, so income vanished. They had to cancel free buses for the elderly and jack up prices of monthly passes. And the thing is, that street that I mentioned, the one served by the 205 bus line and adjacent, those buses were ridiculously crowded all the day EVEN DURING THE PANDEMIC. People who have to take it now WITH tourists tell me it's gotten so out of hand that it's better to take a taxi between a few and commute to the uni or school on it. A LARGE city like Kyoto should not have to rely of mf'ing buses for transportation. It should have an extensive and well planned network of subways and regional trains, yet it doesn't. Its connections to the region are more than good enough, but travelling inside Kyoto, if you're not going to the tourist-y areas, is utter hell on earth. Kyoto is the only place that I have been trapped in a bus without being able to get off for 2 and a half hours, too, because of how bad traffic was, because the driver would not understand that you CAN actually break the rules and let people off if it is for an emergency situation, and because it was so packed that even though the exit door was literally 2 m away from me, it might as well have been behind a wall of sardine flesh. Horrid city to live.
Just fine if you live on hankyu or on the existing subway line. Also has excellent cycleability (including a huge cycling culture) and walkability unless you go to the east or past the rivers (which as you say is the bus problem). Yes the busses and JR have issues, but that doesn’t make the place unlivable and it has public transit that puts to shame large west coast cities I’ve lived in (San Jose, San Diego) TL;DR If you’re willing to ride a bike it’s excellent
"It avoid the fate of Venice that is now being crushed under the weight of overtourism" Are you sure about that ? Kyoto gave me major feeling that if you just plucked out tourism, its economy would just collapse and die. I think the Historical Preservation Law of 1966 caused a lot of woes for modern Kyoto.
Not really. People focus on some touristic and overcrowded site and districts (Gion) but modern Kyoto is way bigger and the millions of inhabitants are actually not living from tourism.
@@MrWertheron I mean, when Kyoto made a headline in, what is it 2020 or 2021, that it potentially would bankrupt as a city, that says a lot about its economy. Not exactly the healthiest economy out there.
@@ImRezaF yep the municipality itself (but to be honest they are in debt for other reasons like the overpriced and useless metro) but economy wise most people in Kyoto are not working for tourism. 10 to 12% of the GDP, it's a lot, but far from Venice dependance. And the phenomenon is way more recent as in the 2000 early 2010 international tourism was not an important thing in Japan and Kyoto was still a relatively dynamic city.
All throughout my nearly 34 years, I have wanted to visit there but now it seems to be more of a tourist trap than ever. Need the path less trimmed, my man! Having said that, I don't hold the opinion that the beauty of the city and its' denizens have been diminished in any way!
Absolutely shocked to learn that Kyoto has such a modest population, and is only japan's 9th largest city. The 1/n city size rule of thumb seems to work only if you drastically reduce the size of Tokyo.
Kyoto is two cities: one of the world's ugliest industrial conglompses, for lack of an ugly enough word, stuck on to the south end of one of the world''s once upon a time more beautiful holy reserves, parks, works of art, and sporadically Royal Capital.
Kyoto south of Kyoto Station gradually looks more American the more south you go. Around where Nintendo’s world HQ is looks like a broke city like Detroit. There’s even a double drive thru McDonalds, several gas stations, and a Porsche dealership around Nintendo lol.
By ancient tradition, the capitol is where the emperor resides. Before Kyoto, Nara was the capitol, and before Nara, the capitol changed with every new emperor because living where a person had died was considered bad luck. Knowing the history of a city is crucial to understand it on the most basic level. This is why i have problems with a great number of your videos. You suggest making changes to cities without an understanding of the problems they were designed to solve. Without that understanding, we run the risk of those problems returing if we make uninformed changes. Texas is FILLED with hundreds of forgotten ghost towns because people did not know what the native americans could have told them: the landscape at that spot can't support a town's needs. Thousands of people lost their life savings when they didn't have to.
0:29 I don't know about this number. Rankings don't include Japan that high up. The only thing I can find that's similar to the claim of '88 million tourists visiting Japan' is a report about some Kyoto prefecture data. This has to be including internal tourism.
He literally says “88 million tourists descended on the CITY” as in Kyoto. So yeah this will include domestic tourism. Not total number of foreign visitors coming to Japan (which btw was around 31 million in 2019)
The original grand palace was quite soon abandoned after the establishment of the city because the Japanese were still superstitious about ghosts of dead emperor(s) haunting the palaces where they died, which was the main reason the imperial capital moved around so much before this. Afterwards a smaller palace complex was built on the east part of the imperial palace grounds. Eventually they moved to the extreme northeast of the city limits, firstly as to technically still be within city limits, but also as it was the compound of the powerful Fujiwara clan who married their daughters into the imperial family and controlled royal affairs for 200 years. It also helps that the east side was higher and drier and less flood-prone than the west, so that the aristocracy congregates north of the Imperial-Fujiwara palace along the Kamo River. Another factor that has temples concentrating on the eastern mountain slopes is the belief that evil comes blowing from the east so putting temples on the eastern edge serves as a barrier against evil. In Edo they tackled it differently by having the commoner towns east of Edo castle to serve as human shields.
As a member of the hordes of foreign tourists to Kyoto, the worst thing about visiting Kyoto was the hordes of foreign tourists. That and the poor train coverage (though this was also a problem everywhere outside Kanto and west Keihanshin)
Yes and no. Some very specific historical districts (Gion or the bamboo forest) are overcrowded BUT not all (you have thousands of temples and historical districts untouched by tourism) and all the modern city (majority of the city) do not see any tourists (except around the station).
Quibble @5:47 (flout rules, not flaunt), but otherwise great coverage. Who'da thunk temples could create sprawl? And hadn't known "geisha" was the wrong term, but not shocked: we Westerners still don't get other cultures, even those we're obsessed with like Japan's.
So let me play the pedant: Nearly all English speakers learn a pronunciation of "Kyoto" （きょうとう）that is very anti-syllabary , that is, not with the sound that the actual name has to native speakers. The problem (as is so often in English) is wanting a sound like the English word "key" as the first syllable. English speakers are very addicted to the long "EE" sound, adding it where it doesn't belong into many foreign words. Check out the pronunciation clip on the Wikipedia entry for Kyoto for how the natives pronounce it.
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Kyoto was removed from the list of cities where the atomic bomb could be dropped because one of the officials making the list went there before on a honeymoon and loved it.
That official was Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
I heard that anecdote too and honestly I'm glad it was spared, it would have been a cultural loss to the world if it had been destroyed!
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cultural losses
The reasons for Kyoto's removal from that list is a subject of debate, there's no evidence that Henry Stimson had his honeymoon there. He did visit the city later on but he cited the city's historical, religious and cultural significance in his argument to have the Kyoto removed from the list. Stories of him honeymooning there seem to have come from later and again, there's nothing to back that up
@@Eric_8724 probably because lack of industrial targets.
Nice video! Thanks for covering the history.
Kyoto is practically in the valley, with hotter summers and colder winters.
For anyone visiting, I recommend spring or fall, colder days. You can layer up, and the crowd makes your surroundings warmer, but nobody can escape the hot humid summer with a crowd.
Before Kyoto, the capital of Japan was where the Emperor was. If he took a fancy to a particular town and decided to settle there, bang, instant capital status. The curious thing is that Tokyo was never really officially declared an imperial capital when the emperor relocated there, leading Kyotoites to joke that the Emperor is on an extended business trip...
This is very much how capital cities were in Europe in the same time period. A ruler traveled from town to town with his warriors to collect taxes and remind the locals who was in charge. Only in later period when the administration grew there was a need for permanent offices but also the kings no longer needed to constantly be everywhere in person.
If you speak Japanese you would understand that Kyo means capital. To is city. Kyoto literally means Capital city. In the other hands, Tou means East. Tokyo (it’s written as Toukyou in Japanese) means East side of the capital city, Tokyo is just the extended Kyoto.
@@phunweng962 Same in Chinese, with Nanjing & Beijing meaning 'south' & "north capital" too, but in Japanese I imagine they'll be called Minami-kyo & Kita-kyo
@@lzh4950 No, in Kyoto there's Kami-kyo, Shimo-kyo, U-kyo and Sa-kyo. Which means Up, down left and right. There is also 10 main streets around the capital palace that's called 一条、二条、三条.... 九条. The entire Kyoto is build around the capital historically.
@@lzh4950Usually we would use the onyomi readings, so Beijing would be Hokkyo and Nanjing would be Nankyo, but we prefer to call them Pekin and Nankin respectively.
A lot of comments are surprised by the fact he said that Kyoto did not have the aame fate as Venice and poibt out overtourism. But, it's true outiside of some really specific districts (Gion, Arashiyama and the surrounding of ghe Fushimi Inari) which are overcrowded, the majority of Historical Kyoto tgere are not a lot of tourists, and thousands of beautiful temples are just ignored by tourists. And the majority of Kyoto is the modern city and (outside of the station) there are no touristss there (and majority of Kyoto inhabitants are not working for the tourism industry). I know japanese and foreign media are focusing on this problem, but in reality overtourism is really a problem of overconcentration in few areas. It doesn't compare with Venice.
I lived in Kyoto years ago for college. I was not too far from Fushimi or Momoyama. It's such a historically tidily organized town I'm glad you've taken a look at its design. I miss it, especially places like Arashiyama
Kyoto is an amazingly quaint and well-designed city which features the most charming architecture of Japan.
As a Bay Area native now living in Kyoto, I'm pleased to see this video and looking forward to the next one about San Francisco!
I highly recommend visiting the Honmaru Palace of Nijo Castle, which was recently reopened to the public after a long renovation project. It's by reservation only, which means you have much more room to walk slowly and look closely at all the details compared to the crowded Ninomaru Palace. There is also a really nice introductory video explaining how the current buildings were actually originally the residence of the Katsura branch of the Imperial Family located in the Imperial Palace, as touched upon in this video, and moved to Nijo Castle in the Meiji Period (1890s). As such, it actually has some western-inspired details like the light fixtures in the hallways, even though overall the architecture is styled after the Edo Period. It really drove home for me that even though Kyoto has such a long history, not everything you see now is equally ancient, but it has been rebuilt and repurposed at various times, sometimes modeled after even earlier periods.
P.S. Anyone from a certain part of the East Bay will probably also be familiar with Nijo Castle for another reason...
I lived in Japan during Covid amd and it was a great once in a lifetime to visit Kyoto. Normally it's a huge touriet trap and getting around is difficult due to everything being packed, but with so many ppl at home everything was almost empty snd you could see anything you want on your time. If something like that happens again where you live, take advantage of the opportunity.
So great of you to be able to take advantage of a worldwide tragedy! I’m so happy you got to enjoy that meanwhile my study abroad to Kyoto was completely cancelled so I wasn’t able to graduate and ended up dropping out. So happy for you though!!!
@@soymilkman cry more
It is one of my all-time favourite cities, along with Edinburgh, Rome and Seville.
Edinburgh, lovely.
Weird list, why those cities)
@@funghi2606 Hardly weird, if you’ve been to any of them, then you’ll know why.
@@funghi2606 i was actually thinking that list made total sense and saw the thread between those cities before i saw your comment
Interesting! Have you been to Florence, zermatt or Dubrovnik?
What makes these Japanese cities work is the high human density. Something which few Americans will tolerate. The greater suburban complex that is centered on Osaka and reaches west to Hyodo and northeast to Kyoto also encourages car ownership, and there are plenty of Japanese who prefer this over the super-dense city centers. Yet even suburban Japan locates residences much closer together than in the US.
I don't get why density is such a big deal with Americans.
@@ianhomerpura8937Because in such a large country with ample open land, building densely is optional for many American cities. In other nations with higher population densities, they have to build denser to accommodate everyone.
That, and the 1950s mentality of "American Dream = big suburban house with needlessly large lawns" never really went away...
I was going to make a comment mentioning the book you recommended, but then you recommended it. I read it in undergrad in an urban history class, and it's a great book.
The history and geography videos are some of my favorites! Great one!
No, the old name of Kyoto wasn't "Hyankyo". It was "Heiankyō". (usually spelled Heian-kyō, in English, presumably to help people get the pronunciation right) The sounds are H-e-i-a-n-ky-o-o. (translates as peaceful/tranquil capital.Whereas Kyoto basically translates as "capital city". Tokyo="eastern capital", with its old name of Edo, essentially meaning "estuary")
Any other cities you want to get the "City in 10 Minutes" treatment?
Manila, Philippines
Mexico City is another major city with a geographical conundrum
I dare you to take on Chongqing! Good luck :)
Athens, or Istanbul
Roma, Italia
Yasaka Jinja used to be called Gion Sha prior to the Meiji Reformation in 1868. That's why the Gion area is called Gion! It also used to be a combined Temple and Shrine (Buddhist and Shinto) but was forced to choose as part of the Emperor's separation of Buddhism and Shinto, which is why the name changed at the same time!
Great video. Thanks for citing my book. Bravo for pronouncing my name perfectly!!!
Trivia: Japan don't have an official capital (de jure: by law) because it is not in the constitution . The capital is where the Emperor and the government are making Tokyo de facto the capital.
I work as a professional tour guide in Kyoto, and I was very impressed with your video! I'm definitely going to buy the paperback of the book recommendation. It's very expensive in JP yen at the moment, though...
So much history and culture has formed in its basin for over a thousand years, I think that big bowl shape in the mountains has created a big "culture soup" that's condensed so much history into such a small space.
As someone that works in the tourism industry, I certainly think the tourism industry could improve its methods and recommendations for tourists, as certain areas of the city could benefit from more tourists, surprisingly. That's something I'm trying to contribute to making changes for, because I really do think it's a matter that could be alleviated by better logistics and marketing.
A beautifully made video and you have a very pleasant voice.
I wonder if Kyoto will stand up to overtourism in the future. I was there this year, and I kept hearing that overcrowding of tourists has become a huge problem there in the last few years. I definitely saw it - some of the temples and historic districts were not at all capable of handling the number of people. Everywhere else in Japan was very good at moving dense crowds efficiently, but in Kyoto I kept getting stuck in streets too packed for anyone to move. I went to Fushimi Inari at night, and that was a much better experience.
Kyoto is awesome!
Love this! Great work
Kyoto, the anagram lover's Tokyo.
People say “Southern Japan”or Southern Honshu all the time. It’s an East/West country. Kyoto is Western Japan. Tokyo is Eastern Japan. And the rest is kind of in reference to those two areas (Kansai and Kanto) or named after whatever island they are on. This is kind of because almost all major Japanese cities are on an East/West line on the southern coast of Honshu in a line from Tokyo to Fukuoka.
I've been to Kyoto once ...in early December 2023....just like you I also don't know anything about its history when I visited it....I just know it's the former capital of Japan and so many tourists flock to it annually.
Going in one month! So cool to see how old the grid is!
Nobunaga indeed had a "Nijo Castle" but it was not related to the current Nijo Castle, and was actually built in a different part of the city close to the location of today's imperial palace. The current caslte is wholly a construction of the Tokugawa (perhaps inspired by the Hideyoshi's Jurakudai palace, which was nearby.)
As someone who has taken classes discussing the urban design of Kyoto, this was mostly very good. I do think it's important to note that the current golden pavilion is not the original one but a relatively modern structure built after the original pavilion was intentionally destroyed by a crazed monk in the 20th century. There's even a Mishima novel about it!
Such a beautiful city!
this is the city in japan i'd actually travel there to see way way way before tokyo
Tokyo is considered an eastern city in relation to Kyoto, not northern. The east/west thing is part of the cities' identities so I wish that more research was done on that specifically.
Japan didn't really move its seat of power, but rather the Shogunate, who had de facto control, exercised his power from Edo (Tokyo).
When the Shogunate fell and the (de facto) power was (temporarily) restored to the Emperor, it was a symbolic choice to relocate the Emperor to where people saw as the place that holds power to show to them that the Emperor is in charge now.
While Kyoto might not have overtourism to the extent Venice has, it still is very much struggling under their weight. Unfortunately, it seems like the vast majority of tourists to Japan just want to see the same few places. The country has so much more to offer, yet 99% of tourists will never know....
I hope you could come to Malaysia and give your honest thoughts of the cities. From Kuala Lumpur, to Putrajaya, and Penang, etc. I consider my country to have bad urban planning as well, lol. And I wish you could give us some of your insights.
Fun fact Vijayawada is most densely populated then Kyoto and as less area than Kyoto I mean 12 times lesser area.
Although the original plans did constrain the development of temples in Kyoto proper. There are many temples in the core. For example, the Hongwanji's are close to the current train station which itself is close to the old Rashomon. (They were constructed during the Hideyoshi "era".)
In your map of Kyoto, the tag for Yasaka Shrine is pointing to Kiyomizu Temple. Yasaka Shrine is on the west edge of the green blob north of Kiyomizu Temple.
San Francisco doesn’t want Musk around anymore. He’s not worth it. He already gutted the headquarters building a couple of years ago. There’s just a skeleton crew left.
One notable fact about Kyoto: it used to accomodate one of the largest Korean communities before WW2, and to this day its legacy can be seen if you look for it.
Kyoto is a beautiful city. Unfortunately, it has an atrocious public transport system, which makes getting around a nightmare, especially when you consider that all the main attractions are on the outskirts. The subway is incomplete and the buses are chronically overcrowded. There used to be an expansive streetcar network, but it was ripped out in the post-war era. It's really struggling to handle the weight of tourism and locals are getting fed-up.
Heiankyo is pronounced like "Hey Ann! Kyo" with Kyo blended as one syllable.
I must have missed the point but why were religious buildings forbidden within the city?
Found the 2 possible reasons:
(1) Kyoto was designed with defense in mind. The placement of certain institutions, including religious buildings, was controlled to maintain the city's security and order. Religious buildings could attract large gatherings of people, which the shogunate wanted to regulate to prevent uprisings or unrest.
(2) The shogunate wanted to separate religious authority from political power. By limiting the presence of religious buildings in the capital, the shogunate emphasized that the government, not religious institutions, held the ultimate authority in society.
They seem to have been much more intelligent than us at the time in regards to religions
I would say we also really misunderstand the layering that Historic Kyoto has, I mean, whilst yes the grid city was a thing at one point, one forgets that the Chinese style city was almost destroyed in the Ryonin wars of the early Fujiwara Regency... the modern Kyoto is a great mix of different pilgrimage centers, which effectively became cities of their own... thus, one can easily say that the area of Hagiyama-Gion is one neighborhood, whilst the area around Ryoanji and Ginkakuji *(silver-pavilion) is completely a separate entity.
also, we often forget the river-side temples of Zuinji and it's surrounding area, which were the center of a fairly early medieval Kyoto with it's gardens forming an existentially different pattern of narrow winding streets... as do we forget the fact that so much of the riverside districts of modern Gion were very working districts of bargemen who would be plying the river, with all the very dense housing and tenements that that entails... you can sometimes see small remnants of that dense city with it's local tiny Shinto shrines (often centered around the various deities of trade) dotted here and there... Kyoto is very much five cities of five different periods built directly upon each other...
This video is very nice and informative. Where is the Gundam base?
Gion and Yasaka Shrine are marked at the wrong place, the actual locations are North of where they're marked in the video. But overall a very informative video!
I personally mainly know Kyoto from Nintendo being headquartered there and that one Digimon Adventure 02 episode that went there.
Interesting point - you reference directions like a foreigner. Japanese (like the residents of Montreal, another NE-SW island) visualise that their island runs east-west; Kyoto/Osaka is the west, Tokyo is the east.
Kyoto is nice, but its public transportation system is utter garbage. Lived in the overall area for 21 years and I really, REALLY don't want to live there. It's utter hell.
Why?
JR/Hankyu/Kintensu lines are all ok and dandy, no problem. Just massively overcrowded. Tokyo levels of overcrowded, if you can believe it. Much worse than Osaka or Kobe.
Subway? Almost non existent. Only a few lines, the newest of them, the Tozai line (East-West) being an utter failure in terms of users. They should have used that money to build a line where it was actually needed: a subway under NishiOoji avenue, in the west, from Saiin Station up north until Ritsumeikan Univ. and the Golden Pavillion. LOTS of people, most of them students and tourists, use that street and right now the overcrowded and unreliable system of RIDICULOUSLY packed buses is insufficient. A subway line there would have served the northwest of downtown, an area that is chronically underserved by public transportation, yet they wasted the money in a line whose customers were already somehow served by pre-existing lines and helped no one, as it brought you from one non-downtown area to another non-downtown area, a route for which there was no demand.
This got so bad that the Kyoto municipal government had to apologize, and explain that they were pretty much bankrupt in 2022 because of it and because of the pandemic. This caused tourist numbers, both national and foreigner, to plummet, so income vanished. They had to cancel free buses for the elderly and jack up prices of monthly passes. And the thing is, that street that I mentioned, the one served by the 205 bus line and adjacent, those buses were ridiculously crowded all the day EVEN DURING THE PANDEMIC. People who have to take it now WITH tourists tell me it's gotten so out of hand that it's better to take a taxi between a few and commute to the uni or school on it.
A LARGE city like Kyoto should not have to rely of mf'ing buses for transportation. It should have an extensive and well planned network of subways and regional trains, yet it doesn't. Its connections to the region are more than good enough, but travelling inside Kyoto, if you're not going to the tourist-y areas, is utter hell on earth.
Kyoto is the only place that I have been trapped in a bus without being able to get off for 2 and a half hours, too, because of how bad traffic was, because the driver would not understand that you CAN actually break the rules and let people off if it is for an emergency situation, and because it was so packed that even though the exit door was literally 2 m away from me, it might as well have been behind a wall of sardine flesh.
Horrid city to live.
Just fine if you live on hankyu or on the existing subway line. Also has excellent cycleability (including a huge cycling culture) and walkability unless you go to the east or past the rivers (which as you say is the bus problem). Yes the busses and JR have issues, but that doesn’t make the place unlivable and it has public transit that puts to shame large west coast cities I’ve lived in (San Jose, San Diego)
TL;DR If you’re willing to ride a bike it’s excellent
Yeah, most of Kyoto’s public transport is designed to connect with Osaka, not for local travel
"It avoid the fate of Venice that is now being crushed under the weight of overtourism"
Are you sure about that ? Kyoto gave me major feeling that if you just plucked out tourism, its economy would just collapse and die. I think the Historical Preservation Law of 1966 caused a lot of woes for modern Kyoto.
Not really. People focus on some touristic and overcrowded site and districts (Gion) but modern Kyoto is way bigger and the millions of inhabitants are actually not living from tourism.
@@MrWertheron I mean, when Kyoto made a headline in, what is it 2020 or 2021, that it potentially would bankrupt as a city, that says a lot about its economy. Not exactly the healthiest economy out there.
@@ImRezaF yep the municipality itself (but to be honest they are in debt for other reasons like the overpriced and useless metro) but economy wise most people in Kyoto are not working for tourism. 10 to 12% of the GDP, it's a lot, but far from Venice dependance. And the phenomenon is way more recent as in the 2000 early 2010 international tourism was not an important thing in Japan and Kyoto was still a relatively dynamic city.
For those playing "THE FINALS" would appreciate it more !
"Kyoto: the anagram lover's Tokyo." -- Futurama
No mention of that breathtaking train station?
All throughout my nearly 34 years, I have wanted to visit there but now it seems to be more of a tourist trap than ever. Need the path less trimmed, my man! Having said that, I don't hold the opinion that the beauty of the city and its' denizens have been diminished in any way!
9:27 - going for a world record of number of words per second are we? 😅
Absolutely shocked to learn that Kyoto has such a modest population, and is only japan's 9th largest city. The 1/n city size rule of thumb seems to work only if you drastically reduce the size of Tokyo.
I've heard Kyoto is getting close to being Venice levels of tourism... or at least the locals think it is.
YES!
Pokemon Gold and Silver is the reason why I have always been fascinated by Kyoto
the thing is. the capital never actualy moved official. By interpretation of Kyoto the Emperor is just on an extended businesstrip.
5:44 you mean flouting, not flaunting.
Kyoto is two cities: one of the world's ugliest industrial conglompses, for lack of an ugly enough word, stuck on to the south end of one of the world''s once upon a time more beautiful holy reserves, parks, works of art, and sporadically Royal Capital.
What about grotesque, teratoid, rancid or rebarbative😊
Kyoto south of Kyoto Station gradually looks more American the more south you go. Around where Nintendo’s world HQ is looks like a broke city like Detroit. There’s even a double drive thru McDonalds, several gas stations, and a Porsche dealership around Nintendo lol.
By ancient tradition, the capitol is where the emperor resides. Before Kyoto, Nara was the capitol, and before Nara, the capitol changed with every new emperor because living where a person had died was considered bad luck.
Knowing the history of a city is crucial to understand it on the most basic level.
This is why i have problems with a great number of your videos. You suggest making changes to cities without an understanding of the problems they were designed to solve. Without that understanding, we run the risk of those problems returing if we make uninformed changes. Texas is FILLED with hundreds of forgotten ghost towns because people did not know what the native americans could have told them: the landscape at that spot can't support a town's needs. Thousands of people lost their life savings when they didn't have to.
🌄
I'll shorten the video.
HILLS. HILLS EVERYWHERE. (In the old city)
0:29 I don't know about this number. Rankings don't include Japan that high up. The only thing I can find that's similar to the claim of '88 million tourists visiting Japan' is a report about some Kyoto prefecture data. This has to be including internal tourism.
He literally says “88 million tourists descended on the CITY” as in Kyoto. So yeah this will include domestic tourism. Not total number of foreign visitors coming to Japan (which btw was around 31 million in 2019)
The original grand palace was quite soon abandoned after the establishment of the city because the Japanese were still superstitious about ghosts of dead emperor(s) haunting the palaces where they died, which was the main reason the imperial capital moved around so much before this. Afterwards a smaller palace complex was built on the east part of the imperial palace grounds.
Eventually they moved to the extreme northeast of the city limits, firstly as to technically still be within city limits, but also as it was the compound of the powerful Fujiwara clan who married their daughters into the imperial family and controlled royal affairs for 200 years.
It also helps that the east side was higher and drier and less flood-prone than the west, so that the aristocracy congregates north of the Imperial-Fujiwara palace along the Kamo River.
Another factor that has temples concentrating on the eastern mountain slopes is the belief that evil comes blowing from the east so putting temples on the eastern edge serves as a barrier against evil. In Edo they tackled it differently by having the commoner towns east of Edo castle to serve as human shields.
So many foreign tourists are going to Kyoto now that Japanese people are starting to avoid it. The sad consequence of overtourism. 😒
As a member of the hordes of foreign tourists to Kyoto, the worst thing about visiting Kyoto was the hordes of foreign tourists. That and the poor train coverage (though this was also a problem everywhere outside Kanto and west Keihanshin)
@@illiiilli24601 You realise that you're just as much of a problem as the other tourists that make up the horde, right? 🤔
@@kjh23gk yeah, that was the joke.
@@illiiilli24601 Apologies. ☺
Kyoto is cartesian, Tokyo is non-euclidian
Kyoto must be the most overshadowed big city in the world
Kyoto is ABSOLUTELY a victim of overtourism, unfortunately
Yes and no. Some very specific historical districts (Gion or the bamboo forest) are overcrowded BUT not all (you have thousands of temples and historical districts untouched by tourism) and all the modern city (majority of the city) do not see any tourists (except around the station).
Thomas Christopher Davis Mary Lewis Eric
Quibble @5:47 (flout rules, not flaunt), but otherwise great coverage. Who'da thunk temples could create sprawl? And hadn't known "geisha" was the wrong term, but not shocked: we Westerners still don't get other cultures, even those we're obsessed with like Japan's.
So let me play the pedant: Nearly all English speakers learn a pronunciation of "Kyoto" （きょうとう）that is very anti-syllabary , that is, not with the sound that the actual name has to native speakers. The problem (as is so often in English) is wanting a sound like the English word "key" as the first syllable. English speakers are very addicted to the long "EE" sound, adding it where it doesn't belong into many foreign words. Check out the pronunciation clip on the Wikipedia entry for Kyoto for how the natives pronounce it.
Flaunting the rules? Tee hee.
First bb
hi