Why is the Imperial Palace central to Tokyo’s layout?

The Imperial Palace serves as the central point of Tokyo’s layout primarily because it occupies the site of the former Edo Castle, the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate.12

The city’s historical development was structured around this defensive arrangement, resulting in a "cobweb" street pattern where main arteries radiate outward from the palace grounds. This layout reflects the historical design of the castle town, with the palace situated at the boundary between the flatlands to the east—which historically housed the mercantile center—and the more stable, hilly regions to the west. Even after significant modernization and recovery from major disasters like the 1923 earthquake and the 1945 bombings, the city has largely maintained this original structural core.31