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View from the Hibiya Station
Hibiya (日比谷, Hibiya?) is a geographic name covering a part of Chiyoda ward (one of the 23 wards in Tokyo prefecture). The zone along the Hibiya Street (Japan National Route 1) from Yūrakuchō to Uchisaiwaichō is Hibiya district. There are any residence indications, but some indications using this word, Hibiya, like Hibiya Park and Hibiya Station. (Hibiya was a ward named Kōjimachi before the Tokyo City was reformed to the present style) Once the outskirts of this district was in the sea, so the name of ‘hibi’ of Hibiya is derived from the facility for the laver of Nori made of bamboo whose name is also ‘hibi’ which was swayed up in the bottom of the shallow water. In the era of Tokugawa shogunate, the Tokugawa bakufu worked out of the Edo castle, the surrouding area of the Edo castle was developed and landfilled and then the calm fishing village had altered to the arranged city where many Daimyō live in. Since the Meiji Restoration was set, Hibiya, the city of Tokyo had become a modern symbolic city for there were many buildings which were also famous and now existing like the Imperial Hotel of the first western hotel, Rokumeikan, the cityhall of the Tokyo City and also the Tokyo club (It was a famous and pioneering society club.). In 1930s, the first Japanese electric traffic light had appeared at this Hibiya cross over point. The town where the fashionable social circle of the aristocracy now changed into the business street that’s representative of Japan with office buildings lining up the theaters, hotels and large corporations.
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