The Bay of Tokyo

Orbit 35914, Frame 2889, 4 March, 2002 01:20 GMT

The Bay of Tokyo seen through the radar eye of ERS-2.
Tokyo is one of the world's major agglomerations of people and industrial activity. Although human settlements in the area date from prehistoric times, the rise of Tokyo started only in the 17th century when at former Edo a fortification was built. Since 1868, Tokyo is the capital of Japan. Today the megalopolis counts more than twelve million inhabitants and an enormous concentration of modern industrial plants, mainly along the shores of the bay.
Despite catastrophic events -- widespread fires in 1872 and a disastrous earthquake and fires in 1923 -- Tokyo's development into a megacity was uninterrupted. Today, millions of commuters make the trip to central Tokyo every day, with resulting transport problems of megacity size. These were partially alleviated in 1964, for the 1964 Olympic Games, when radial city highways and eight peripheral ring roads were constructed. Public transport capacity was also much increased with the construction of the famous high-speed "bullet trains" (Shinkansen) and the Tokyo underground.
This ERS-2 radar image shows the Bay of Tokyo, with hundreds of ships, represented as bright points, attesting to the intense activity in this busy area of the world. Along the eastern shores of the bay, on reclaimed land, many industrial plants, which appear as bright rectangular areas, are clearly visible. The main harbour of Tokyo, Yokohama, is located on the western shore. To the north of Yokohama is Kawasaki with the old airport. In the northwest corner of the bay is the center of Tokyo, extending along the banks of the Sumida river, with the seven modern steel bridges built in the 1930s, all well visible in the image.

Click on the thumbnail image to see a higher resolution version of this image; a very high resolution image, 1902 x 1950 pixels, 884405 bytes, is also available.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry