THE INDUSTRIAL GEOGRAPHY OF TOKYO

Abstract

Modern industry in Japan started at the beginning of the 20th century, about a hundred years after the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Though its first stage was light industry, it was converted to heavy industry with World War I as a turning point. World War 11 devastated most of its facilities, but the rapid post-war reconstruction has brought about the development of assembling industries such as cameras and transister radios. Japan's present major industrial areas are in the Keihin urban area centering Tokyo and Yokohama, the Hanshin urban area centering Osaka and Kobe, the Chukyo urban area with Nagoya as its center, and the Northern Kyushu industrial area. More than 70% of the factories of the whole country are located in those places. Through the investigation into the geographical distribution of those factories, we planned to grasp the ciharacteristics of those industrial areas, and as its first step a research was made on the geographical development of industrial plants situated in Tokyo, the center city of the largest industrial area in Japan. Tokyo is situated at the east end of the Musashino Upland between the Arakawa and the Tama Rivers pouring into Tokyo Bay. It was founded as the capital city in the 17th century. The upper part of the Upland has developed as the residential area and the lower eastern part as the commercial and industrial area. The industrial production made in a part of this city resulted in a wholesale manual labour and, with the moderization of Japan at the end of the 19th century, spread its area reaching Yokohama, Tokyo's outer port, forming the industrial area called the Keihin industrial area. The Keihin is the largest industrial area in Japan, where about 15 per cent of the total number of factories are concentrated and some 22 per cent in value of the total national shipments are made. Tokyo is the center of this industrial area, where approximately 90 per cent of the factories in this area are found and about 65 per cent in value of the total shipments are made. The number of factories with workers 30 or more amouns to 6, 764 in Tokyo. In addition, there are more than 50, 000 smallscale plants employing less than 30 persons. These small plants are ignored in the map. The ratio of the small-scale factories in Tokyo is higher than that of the Keihin or the country as a whole. From the standpoint of the nature and distribution, the industries in Tokyo may be classified into the following three categories; 1. Heavy and chemical industries (iron-steel, metal, non-ferrous metal, machinery, chemical, ceramic, stone and clay products manufacturing, petroleum and coal products manufacturing and various other similar industries), which provide materials to other industries. 2. Assembling industries (electrical machinery, transportation machinery, precision machinery manufacturing industries), and 3. Light industries (food, fiber, cloth, wood, furniture, paper, printing, leather and miscellaneous manufacturing industries) (1) Heavy and chemical industrial establishments (Fig. 2, Fig. 3) are concentrated on the following three areas: the eastern area, the delta of the Sumida River; the northern area stretching from the alluvial plain along the Arakawa River (of which the River Sumida is a lower branch) to the eastern end of the Mushashino Diluvial Upland 9 and the Southern area situated on the alluvial plain of the Tama River and the western end of the Musashino Diluvial Upland. In the southern part of the eastern area are found iron-steel mills, metal working and machinery manufacturing plants, which turn out steel products, steel products for manufacturing construction machinery, and other heavy products, as well as shipbuilding yards. Crisscrossed creeks are convenient for transporting raw materials to feed large-scale factories with more than 300 workers.