Here is a little more history of Tokyo. Did you know that the land that Tokyo Station sits on was once underwater, was part of Tokyo Bay?
The land that Tokyo Station currently sits on was once part of the Edo Bay. The center of Tokyo used to be called Edo, and most of the district was sea, ponds and badly marshy.
The coastline used to come right up to Tokyo Castle. And Hibiya Park used to be Hibiya Bay, before it was filled in with landfill:
"I had no idea that the bay came as far in as the Emperor's Palace Grounds until 1880. But then, when you look at a map it makes sense seeing as the bottom-right side of the moat has straight, manmade lines. Thanks for sharing!
"It did not, the legend [on the map in the webpage] reads before 1880. What was the mouth of a river entering the bay in front of the
Shogun castle near where is now Hibiya park was filled very early during the Shogunate (early 1600s). It was called Hibiya Irie, the Hibiya bay. One had to cross that bay to go from the castle to a large sand bank, where Tokyo station stands nowadays (that area was called Edomaeshima). The river was redirected to avoid floodings of the castle area, and to do that a big piece of land was dug, it is the "valley" near Ochanomizu (which is not natural). The material thus dug was used to fill Hibiya Bay.
h ttps://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/6z7kuq/history_of_tokyo_bay_infill/
Edo (
江戸) literally means 'bay-entrance" or "estuary'.
Tokyo also used to have a number of canals, which were filled in after WWII.