Narrow street in Tokyo

Even during the medieval period, Edo (today's Tokyo), was an extremely crowded city. In the samurai districts, which were about two-thirds of the city, there were 14,000 residents per square kilometer, about the same density as in today's Tama Ward. More relaxed were only the religious areas, which, while covering 15 percents of the city, were housing only 4,500 residents per square kilometer.

But in the townspeople districts, the density was an astonishing 69,000 residents per square kilometer... Compared to today's Tokyo, this is equivalent to the density of Ikebukuro or Nakano - but take into account that there were no tall buildings!

Since it was such a packed city, there's no wonder that many streets were very, very narrow. And in some areas, the old, narrow streets survived until today, as the one photographed here in Tsukishima.