上野公園入口

About this photo

This photo shows an entrance to Ueno Park in Taito Ward, Tokyo. It appears in Tokyo Keshiki Shashinban (Views of Tokyo), a photo album said to have been published around 1893 (Meiji 26). The title does not say which entrance is shown.

In the Edo period the hill at Ueno was the grounds of Kan'eiji, a temple closely tied to the Tokugawa family. After many of its buildings burned in the Boshin War at the end of the shogunate, a decree of the Dajokan, the Meiji government's Council of State, made it one of Japan's first public parks in 1873, along with Shiba, Asakusa, Fukagawa and Asukayama. Expositions were held there several times during the Meiji era, a museum and a zoo opened, and Ueno became the center of Tokyo's cultural life.

In 1924 (Taisho 13) the Imperial Household Ministry granted the park to the City of Tokyo, and its official name became Ueno Onshi Koen (Ueno Imperial Gift Park). It is still one of Tokyo's best-known parks, home to art museums, museums and a zoo.

Glossary