Hibiya Park

Hibiya park
Location	Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
Coordinates	35°40′25.3″N 139°45′21.8″E / 35.673694°N 139.756056°E / 35.673694; 139.756056Coordinates: 35°40′25.3″N 139°45′21.8″E / 35.673694°N 139.756056°E / 35.673694; 139.756056
Area	161,636.66 square metres (39.94129 acres)
Created	1903

Hibiya Park (日比谷公園, Hibiya Kōen) is a park in Chiyoda City, Tokyo, Japan. It covers an area of 161,636.66m² between the east gardens of the Imperial Palace to the north, the Shinbashi district to the southeast and the Kasumigaseki government district to the west.

The land was occupied by the estates of the Mōri clan and Nabeshima clan during the Edo period, and was used for army maneuvers during the Meiji period. It was converted to a park and opened to the public on June 1, 1903.^[1]

On September 5, 1905 the park was the scene of the Hibiya Incendiary Incident a major city-wide riot that erupted in protest of the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth which ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

The park is famous for the Shisei Kaikan (市政会館), a brick building built in Gothic style in 1929, which once housed the Domei Tsushin state wire service and its postwar successors Kyodo News and Jiji Press.

The park is also known for its open-air concert venue, Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall (日比谷野外音楽堂), and for its tennis courts (for which reservations are hotly contested due to their proximity to the financial and government districts).

Surrounding buildings

• Attorneys' Hall (Japan Federation of Bar Associations headquarters)
• Fukoku Seimei Building
• Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
• Ministry of the Environment
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
• Ministry of Justice
• Mizuho Bank Building
• Nissay Theatre
• NTT Hibiya Building
• Shinsei Bank Building
• Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Building

Gallery

• 
  Hibiya Park Lake and Wisteria Grove
• 
  Shisei Kaikan, former home of Japan's newswires
• 
  Rai stone in Hibiya park
• 
  Ongaku-do, Hibiya Park, Tokyo, 1909

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hibiya Park.

• Tokyo Parks Association official webpage

References