Where the name Yoyogi 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.
Walk southwest from Yoyogi Station towards the northern approach to Meiji Jingū. Beyond the modern offices and residential streets lies the shrine's wooded precinct. In the Edo period, part of this land formed a residence of the Ii family, powerful lords of Hikone. A remarkable fir tree grew in the estate and became known as the Great Fir of Yoyogi. Historical records describe branches spreading roughly 54 metres and a trunk measuring about 10.8 metres around. The artist Utagawa Hiroshige even depicted the tree in a print.
One theory says that Yoyogi means a place where an exceptional tree was preserved through successive generations. Shibuya Ward records another explanation: villagers may have cultivated saikachi trees over many generations, giving the area its name. Yoyogi Village already appears in records from the Sengoku period, so the origin cannot be established from the great fir alone.
Local tradition says that retainers of the Ii family climbed the tree to watch foreign ships in Edo Bay during the final years of the shogunate. The giant no longer survives. Continue into the grounds of Meiji Jingū and the contrast is striking: a district once remembered for a single tree is now associated with an extensive forest.
→ From Yoyogi Station, follow the northern approach to Meiji Jingū. The legendary fir has disappeared, but the shrine's Inner Garden preserves land associated with the Ii family's estate. Its paths and changing ground levels offer a glimpse of the earlier landscape.
Sources (in Japanese): 渋谷区「地名の由来・代々木」, 明治神宮「Q&A・地名『代々木』の由来」, nippon.com「代々木：代々伝わる木を起源とする地名」
Leave Yoyogi Station through the east exit and head towards Sendagaya. The railway junction and closely packed buildings occupy land once known as Shinden, part of Sendagaya Village. Fields produced rice, barley, buckwheat and vegetables, some of which travelled to markets in Nihonbashi. Railway tracks appeared in 1885 and again in 1894, but neither company initially built a station here. The area remained far less developed than neighbouring Shinjuku.
Yoyogi Station finally opened in 1906. Although it stood in Sendagaya Village, the name Sendagaya had already been given to another nearby station. Historical accounts suggest this was why the railway chose Yoyogi instead. The name came from a village farther southwest, illustrating how railways sometimes shifted the identity of a district as well as its centre of activity.
Walk from the west exit towards Meiji Jingū's northern approach. Farther inside the shrine grounds, the Inner Garden occupies land once used by the Katō and Ii families as residential estates. It later became imperial property and was adapted as a walking garden for Empress Shōken. The shrine was established in 1920, and its surrounding forest was deliberately planted. The contrast between the former agricultural land around the station and the old estate gardens explains how Yoyogi became the neighbourhood seen today.
→ Walk east towards Sendagaya to trace the former farmland now crossed by railway lines. Then return west and enter Meiji Jingū by the northern approach. The planted shrine forest and the older Inner Garden show two different ways the landscape was transformed.
Sources (in Japanese): nippon.com「代々木駅：1906年の開業と千駄ヶ谷村新田」, 明治神宮「明治神宮御苑」, 明治神宮「明治神宮とは・創建と人工林」, 渋谷区「地名の由来・代々木と千駄ヶ谷」
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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).