Greater Tokyo is the world's most populated metropolitan area and is the centre of Japanese culture, finance, and government. A busy cosmopolitan city, Tokyo is also a major transportation mecca and a worldwide economic and industrial centre. The city has a large number of world-class institutions of higher education, the highest concentration of universities in Japan to offer to the general public and visitors from overseas. Tokyo was known as Edo until 1868, when the Japanese imperial family was moved there from Kyoto. Metropolitan Tokyo is commonly portrayed as the four prefectures of Tokyo, Saitaima, Kanagawa, and Chiba, while the city of Tokyo proper usually refers to the 23 wards in Tokyo prefecture itself. The metropolitan area includes the major cities of Yokohama (which is the 2^nd largest city in Japan.

Japanese society is unusually consistent. Ethnic Japanese make up 98.5 percent of the country’s sizeable population. While different areas of Japan, particularly the central Kansai region encompassing Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, are known for having distinctive, colourful local dialects, the whole country fundamentally speaks the same language.

Traditional Japanese society and culture stress the values of harmony, consensus decision-making and social conformity. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” is a common Japanese saying and guideline of social behaviour.