Monday 5 October 2009

Tokyo Bay


Following on from the entry about the reclaimed Jonanjima Park (Jima = shima = island), I thought something about land reclamation in Tokyo Bay might be apt.  This picture, which comes courteousy of Wikipedia, shows contemporary Tokyo Bay. Yokohama and Kawasaki are on the south west shoreline, Tokyo in the North and North West, Chiba (which includes Disney) starts in the north and goes down the whole eastern length.
You can see clearly by the carved angular teeth that jut out into the bay, there is a lot of reclaimed land.  There are maps that show the change in the shape of Tokyo Bay over the history of land reclamation.  A quick google didn't turn it up - but I will keep an eye out in the future.
The changes in the shape of Tokyo Bay over the past 250  years are quite extreme.  The difference between the built up Tokyo-Yokohama stretch is also sharp contrast to the much less densely populated southern Chiba.