Donald Richie 
Tokyo Megacity 

This photographic Tokyo travel guide explores the dynamic Japanese culture, art and architecture that make Tokyo a world-class city.


It has been said that ‘every city has its high points, but Tokyo is all exclamation points!’ The largest and most populous city in the world, Tokyo must be experienced in person to be understood truly. The next best thing?
Tokyo Megacity–a visual and descriptive exploration of a city that combines old with new and traditional with trendy, like no other city in the world.


This extraordinary book explores Tokyo through 250 revealing photographs by well-known photographer Ben Simmons and over 30 essays by famed author Donald Richie. Their love of the city, their sense of its history, and the deep respect and pure joy felt in being here, shine through on every page. Simmons and Richie show us how modern Tokyo evolved from a patchwork of villages that still exist today as distinct neighborhoods and districts to the modern, trendsetting metropolis renowned the world over–that combine to make Tokyo a unique and special place.


Tokyo Megacity presents the districts of the city in the order that they originally developed, starting with the Imperial Palace, sliding down to the ‘Low City’ along the Sumida River, soaring back up to the ‘Mid-City, ‘ and finally, climbing the hills to the newer districts of the ‘High City.’ The combination of Ben Simmons’ photographs and Donald Richie’s text capture, as never before, the tremendous diversity, vitality and sheer livability of the megacity that is Tokyo.

A propos de l’auteur

Donald Richie is the author of over forty books, dozens of speeches and essays and hundreds of book, film and art reviews. He lives and writes in Tokyo.


Ben Simmons taught photography at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina before traveling to Japan in search of adventure. Ben specializes in evocative graphic images for assignments, photo-essays, books and original prints.