Customer Reviews

Tokyo City Atlas: A Bilingual Guide (Revised Ed.)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tokyo is a strong candidate for the most confusing and poorly planned city on the planet, and it doesn't help any that the addresses look like this:
   3-26-16 Harajuku, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
To those of us who are used to a street name and a building number, they might as well have left this in Kanji for all the good it does us. In fact, all of the expatriate Americans I met had the same advice: just go by the landmarks since the addresses were just too complicated--in other words, they never figured out how to use them. After 4 months of accepting this advice and not being able to find many places I wanted to go, I dared to ask just how this crazy system works. What I found was that it's not that complicated at all, but you need to have a book like this one. The way it works is this: the address indicates the ward of the city (Shibuya-ku), the area in Shibuya-ku (Harajuku), the sub-area of Harajuku (the first number: 3), the block number of Harajuku-3 (the second number: 26), and the building number on that block (the third number: 16). There are two ways of figuring out where this is:

1) Read the signs on lampposts that indicate which block you are on. Unfortunately these can be terribly hard to find, are sometimes missing, require that you can read Kanji, don't indicate how close you are, and don't give you any idea about which direction you should head.
2) Look in this book and find the block you need on the map. Easy easy easy.

Additional benefits:
- Locations are frequently given by the name of a building, which doesn't help much if you don't know where that building is. That's when the index of building names and addresses comes in extremely handy.
- Since Tokyo subway stations are absolutely MASSIVE, the maps make it easier to find out which subway entrance you should use, since you can look at the underground detail of the station to find the entrance nearest your platform. Conversely, it can help you choose which station to get off at, by looking at which platform will get you closer to your destination.
-It's bilingual throughout, so you can use it to find an English translation of a Japanese address, or you can put an address you know in English back into Japanese to someone if you need to ask directions.

Tokyo will be complex city more than your exception. The popularity is more than 10million. And the downtown is divided to 23 special city(23KU). The railway run here and there, the line is too complex for Japanese even. Though I have lived more than 20 years in Tokyo, I have problems when ride to train.
Especially, in the center of down town(inner Ymanote line), metro more than 20 lines run, more complex.

For that, foreigners will need maps etc. Certainly the railway is too complex, on the other hands, if you use the railway very well, you will use your time efficiently. There are few people that use car when they commute. In Tokyo railway is developed so that there are not the space we can walk.

And if you go to jorney to Tokyo, I recommend Asakusa etc not Sinjuku, Ikebukuro.
Asakusa is the town that we feel the history of unique Japanese.
Off course if you want to feel the new fashion not Japanese history, will be good to Harajuku or Sibuya in addition to Ikebukuro or Sinjuku.

And, if you have the extra time, should go to the place except of Tokyo, that is, Kyoto etc. Kyoto etc will be the place that you feel truth Japanese history and beauty than Tokyo.

Thank you for reading poor writing.

I visited Tokyo for 4 weeks, and thought I could probably get some use out of this atlas. Probably wouldn't have picked it up if I were going for just a week.

However, it turned out that I desperately needed it my first day! My husband & I visited Shinjuku and were trying to find Isetan, the major department store, in time for opening so we could see the opening ritual (all the employees bow and greet you). We didn't bring this atlas and were instead working from the map in the Lonely Planet Tokyo Condensed. Big mistake! The Lonely Planet maps were dead wrong. They didn't show subway exit numbers (there are about 40 exits out of Shinjuku - to get where you want to go, you should probably know which want to use). We wandered for an hour and got on each other's nerves and then finally stumbled across Isetan by sheer luck.

If we had had this map with us, we would have known exactly which subway exit to use and how to get there, and would have been in time for the opening ceremonies!

Tokyo is hard to get around. If you're going to visit it, even for a week, make your life much easier, and get this atlas. Spend your time seeing what you want to see, instead of stumbling around lost and frustrated!

I am proud to say, btw, with this map, I haven't gotten lost once in Tokyo - something that has impressed my Japanese friends!

This is THE most useful item to pack, when going to Tokyo. Subway maps, JR maps, street maps that make sense: all of it arranged in a "just slightly larger than pocket size" format. That this book is written in both English characters and kana is a plus as well; should you get lost, find your nearest police box [or nice Japanese person], break out this handy book, and give the "Please help me, for I am lost and frantic and foreign" look, and lo-you will be unlost quickly.
Long-term residents should consider this book as well: no other book has as much information in such a handy format. I had numerous residents expressing an interest in acquiring my book; if I'd had the money, I would have bought everyone I was with a copy of this as a present.
Really-I can't say enough good things about this book and it's usefullness; this one book allowed me to wander confidently around Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Akihabara, Ueno, Jingu-mae, Tokyo station and the Imperial Gardens, and more. If you are going to Tokyo, please make sure you bring this book with you: this book gives you the freedom to wander and not get too lost.

As a former Tokyo ex-pat, and recently returned visitor, I can tell you with absolute confidence that this is THE BEST map to get for Tokyo if you want to pack light. Here is the KEY feature you need to understand - this is the best map, and the only one I have seen in a fairly small and easy to carry format - that in addition to the WARDS also gives sufficient detail to identify the CHU, CHOME, and BLOCK numbers. Many building names are listed as well. If you are unfamiliar with how to find addresses in Tokyo then you need this map! This map will help you to find the correct BLOCK for a given address and from there it is usually pretty easy to find the BUILDING number you are looking for. VERY FEW MAPS GIVE THIS DETAIL. My 66 year old mother used this map on a SOLO VISIT to Tokyo and did not get lost even ONCE. I kid you not! This is the only Tokyo map I carry and recommend it exclusively. The only down-side - if you are looking for areas in far outlying areas away from core downtown and tourist spots the coverage is not quite a good (same info but lower map resolution). For most travellers this will be fine.

This book is a must! I visited Tokyo for the first time in April, and by the second day, I was leading my friends who had been in Tokyo several times before!! Finding locations by address is no problem with this atlas. It completely de-mystifies the address system in Tokyo.

This book also helped me map out routes to specific destinations. Since all the train station entrance / exit door numbers are marked on the maps, I could see in advance exactly which station exit I should take to get closest to my destination. - Invaluable when you're getting off the train in a gigantic station like Shinjuku, because taking the wrong exit can quite literally get you lost!

Everyone who travels to Tokyo needs to have this book in their bag!

The previous reviews are right on target; This is a wonderful atlas! This book actually got me "un-lost" once when I had been foolish enough to set off without looking at it first. I was able to check the chome (sub-ward) and block numbers on the nearest lamp post and instantly figure out where I had wandered off to! My family uses it all the time, we even went out and bought a second copy so my husband & I could each have one!

I got my first copy of this map book in 1998 when I moved to Japan for a 2-year assignment. Look...even TAXI drivers can't find addresses in Tokyo (though GPS is helping them now). While to Westerners the address system is mystifying, it's really quite logical - area of the city, neighborhood, block within the neighborhood, building within the block. I'll add, since the building numbers were often assigned in the order in which the houses were built, that can be a bit confusing at times - but this book will help you.

In addition, though Tokyo is light years ahead of other Japanese cities in the use of Roman Characters (romaji), it was very helpful to me to be able to "match the pictures" - when Kanji characters were all that were available.

I've had three editions since my first one. Tokyo has added at least 3 new subway lines since 1998, and subways now extend to train lines. This map book is the key.

You still have to do the work - it's not a magic book. But it has proven to be a life-saver for me. If you are exploring past the doors of the 5-star hotels, and are going by foot instead of by tourist coach, by all means, make this investment.

Everytime I go to Tokyo, I make sure I pack THIS book!

Except for a vague understanding that Tokyo's different districts were divided into subwards (or "chome"), I have never understood how Japanese addresses work despite my frequent travels to the Japan. Someone once told me that even Japanese people don't understand the address system, and that only the postman could decipher the secret code behind "3-2-5 Nihombashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo" (the address of the Pokemon Center in Ginza).

However, based on previous review, I bought this book. Now, I don't know how I ever got around without it.

My only criticism is that although the maps are certainly complete enought, the book itself does not contain an explanation as to how to use them. I learned how to decode a Japanese address by reading the previous review and by memorizing this: "CHOME (SUBWARD)-BLOCK-BUILDING." This means that the address 3-2-5 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo can be translated as Subward 3, Block 2, Building 5 in Nihombashi, Chuo-Ku.

Without this explanation, it can be difficult to understand how to use the maps in the book. For this reason, I am giving the book only 4 stars, instead of 5.