Shinjuku
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Shinjuku

Shinjuku (Japanese: 新宿区, Hepburn: Shinjuku-ku; IPA: [ɕiɲdʑɯkɯ] ), officially called Shinjuku City, is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo. It is located to the west of the Japanese capital.

Since the end of World War II, Shinjuku has become a major secondary center of Tokyo (fukutoshin), rivaling the original city center in Marunouchi. Today, it is a major commercial and administrative center, housing the busiest railway station in the world (Shinjuku Station) as well as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administrative center of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

As of 2025, the ward has an estimated population of 355,981, living in a total area of 18.23 km2.

Since 2014, its mayor is Kenichi Yoshizumi, who does not belong to the Liberal Democratic Party, but supports the values and policies of the ruling party, conservative and nationalist.

In 1634, during the Edo period, as the outer moat of the Edo Castle was built, a number of temples and shrines moved to the Yotsuya area on the western edge of Shinjuku. In 1698, Naitō-Shinjuku had developed as a new (shin) station (shuku or juku) on the Kōshū Kaidō, one of the major highways of that era. Naitō was the family name of a daimyō whose mansion stood in the area; his land is now a public park, the Shinjuku Gyoen. In 1898, the Yodobashi Water Purification Plant, the city's first modern water treatment facility, was built in the area that is now between the park and the train station.

In 1920, the town of Naitō-Shinjuku, which comprised large parts of present-day Shinjuku (the neighborhood, not the municipality), parts of Nishi-Shinjuku and Kabukichō were integrated into Tokyo City. Shinjuku began to develop into its current form after the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923, since the seismically stable area largely escaped the devastation. Consequently, West Shinjuku is one of the few areas in Tokyo with many skyscrapers.

The Tokyo air raids from May to August 1945 destroyed almost 90% of the buildings in the area in and around Shinjuku Station. The pre-war form of Shinjuku and the rest of Tokyo was retained after the war because the roads and rails, damaged as they were, remained, and these formed the heart of Shinjuku in the post-war construction. Only in Kabuki-cho was a grand reconstruction plan put into action.

The present ward was established on March 15, 1947 with the merger of the former wards of Yotsuya, Ushigome, and Yodobashi. It served as part of the athletics 50 km walk and marathon course during the 1964 Summer Olympics. In March 1965, the Yodobashi Water Purification Plant closed and was replaced by skyscrapers in the following years.

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