Shitamachi Museum

The Shitamachi Museum

The Tokyo audio-guided tour presents you with the Shitamachi Museum, a museum of popular arts and traditions installed in the heart of Ueno Park, to understand the history of the city.

Daily life of the Edo period

The museum is devoted to the Edo period, during which Tokyo developed rapidly between 1603 and 1868. The metropolis, today the most populous in the world, was only a fishing village named Edo until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the Tokugawa clan settled there and founded the shogunate of the same name. From the 1720s, Edo was among the most populous cities in the world. The museum presents objects of the daily life of the time, as well as the reproduction of a shoemaker's house and a confectionery shop.

What there is to see

The museum offers a veritable immersion in traditional Japanese culture, through the objects and the reconstituted decors of life of the past. It is an instructive stop in Ueno Park, ideal for grasping how the modest village of Edo became the immense Tokyo of today.

Practical information

The Shitamachi Museum is in Ueno Park, in Tokyo. It can generally be visited according to hours that may vary depending on the season. It is advisable to check the conditions of access before the visit. Access is on the level.

What is the Shitamachi Museum?

A museum of popular arts and traditions in Ueno Park, devoted to the daily life of Tokyo during the Edo period.

What is the Edo period?

The period during which the Tokugawa clan governed Japan, between 1603 and 1868, and when Edo, the former name of Tokyo, knew a spectacular rise.