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> Edo was renamed Tokyo and made the official capital

It is funny that they just reversed Kyoto when they picked that name. I wonder why they did that.

Edit: Apparently "kyo" just means capitol and Tokyo is eastern capitol and Kyoto is capitol city. But it wouldn't surprise me if they picked those names as a pun to make the names similar.




Turns out they didn't, quite. Tōkyō is East Capital, the Tō is 'East'; Kyōto is Capital City, the To being 'City'. Kyō is the same in each.


What they did, though, is change Tokyo from a fu (符) to a to (都). Tokyo is the only to, and there wasn't one before, they came up with it for Tokyo. There were other fus, but there are only two left nowadays: Kyoto-fu and Ōsaka-fu.

Why do I mention this? Because Tokyo-to is written 東京都. Kyoto is written 京都. Remember that 東 means East. And yes, there are places in the east of Kyoto that carry the name 東京都 (higashi-Kyoto, higashi being another reading of the character 東). This has to be a troll.




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