Travel to Japan: Tokyo: Pre-War With the Meiji Restoration
in1868, Edo was renamed Tokyo, or "eastern capital." For a time,
the city's population collapsed, mainly because the new regime
no longer required nobles to live in Tokyo half the time. By
1877, Tokyo must have seemed like a pre-industrial Detroit,
because its population had declined from 1.4 million to less
than 600,000. Still, the new government also disavowed the
shogunate policy of isolation, or sakoku seisaku, and when
growth resumed the city grew very rapidly. It took 20 years to
regain its lost population, but by 1910 the city had 1.8
million. Japan had now embarked on its famous course of
Civilization and Enlightenment, or Bummei Kaika. The change was
tantamount to westernization. Basil Chamberlain and W.B. Mason,
authors of Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Japan (1907)
explained that "since 1869 a great change has taken place in the
outward appearance of the city. Most of the yashiki, or Daimyo's
mansions, have been pulled down to make roo