Where the name Kichijoji comes from, what stood here before the station, and what you can still spot on a walk today. Then the events near the station that we have checked on the official pages.
Kichijoji takes its name from a Buddhist temple that is not actually in the neighborhood. The temple stands today in Bunkyo City, but during the Edo period it was near Suidobashi, surrounded by a community of merchants and residents. After the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 and another fire the following year, the shogunate reorganized parts of Edo. Residents of the temple district were forced to relocate to the largely undeveloped Musashino countryside.
In 1659, the settlers began cultivating land assigned to them by the government. They named their new settlement Kichijoji Shinden, preserving the name of the temple they had left behind. The village was laid out along the Itsukaichi Kaido road, with long, narrow agricultural plots extending back from the road on either side.
Leave Kichijoji Station through the north exit and walk toward Itsukaichi Kaido. The busy streets occupy land once used for growing wheat and vegetables for Edo. Kichijoji's name is a reminder that the history of this fashionable neighborhood began with people rebuilding their lives after losing their original homes.
→ Walk north from the station to Itsukaichi Kaido, where the long, narrow plots of the Edo-period farming village can still be traced in the street layout. Visit Musashino Hachimangu Shrine along the old road.
Sources (in Japanese): 武蔵野市・江戸時代の武蔵野, 武蔵野市・武蔵野ヒストリー 吉祥寺と西久保
The tiny lanes of Harmonica Yokocho, just outside Kichijoji Station's north exit, grew from a market established after World War II. Long before the station existed, this was farmland. Settlers who arrived in 1659 cultivated wheat and vegetables along Itsukaichi Kaido and supplied produce to Edo. South of today's station, the land slopes down toward Inokashira Pond, whose water was drawn into the Kanda water-supply system serving the Edo capital.
The railway transformed the district. The Kobu Railway opened through the area in 1889, and Kichijoji Station followed in 1899. Inokashira Park opened in 1917, and the present Keio Inokashira Line reached Kichijoji in 1934. Farms gradually gave way to a suburban neighborhood connected to central Tokyo.
After the war, a market developed on land cleared during wartime building demolitions near the station's north exit. That market became today's Harmonica Yokocho, with narrow passages filled with small restaurants and shops. Walk south from the station afterward, descending toward Inokashira Pond. The route connects three landscapes: Edo's agricultural countryside and water supply, the railway suburb, and the commercial district that emerged after the war.
→ Explore the narrow lanes of Harmonica Yokocho outside the north exit, then cross the station and follow Nanaibashi-dori downhill to Inokashira Pond, once part of Edo's water-supply system.
Sources (in Japanese): 武蔵野市・吉祥寺の基礎づくり, 武蔵野市・吉祥寺地域の概要
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We list events we could confirm on the official page or official Instagram of the venue or organiser. Details can change, tickets sell out and venues close, so check the official page before you go. Distances are straight-line and travel times are rough estimates. Photos show the venue or its surroundings, not the event itself. Titles and descriptions are our own translations from Japanese. This site contains affiliate links (ads).