Shibuya 渋谷
The crossing in front of the station lets over 3,000 people cross at each green light.
The name means ‘bitter valley’: the neighbourhood occupies a hollow carved by the Shibuya and Utagawa rivers into the Musashino plateau, which is why it is full of steep slopes. The area belonged to the Shibuya clan from 1160, and in the Edo period it prospered as a stop on the road to Ōyama, today Route 246. The station opened in 1885 on the Yamanote line, and in 1932 the area became part of Tokyo, merging with Sendagaya and Yoyohata. Until the '60s it was considered a peripheral area: the commercial rivalry between the Tokyu and Seibu department stores in the '70s turned it into the centre of youth culture, overtaking Shinjuku.
Tokyo
Shibuya
