Parks in Tokyo

The Imperial Palace East Gardens are the beautifully maintained, freely accessible former grounds of Edo Castle's innermost defensive ring, offering a serene green oasis directly in the center of Tokyo.

Ueno Park is Tokyo's most culturally dense public park, home to the city's highest concentration of major museums, a large zoo, beautiful shrines, and atmospheric lotus ponds.

Yoyogi Park is a massive, very popular public park adjacent to Meiji Shrine, famous as a weekend gathering place for musicians, dancers, cosplayers, and picnicking families.

Shinjuku Gyoen is a sprawling 144-acre national garden in the heart of Tokyo combining three distinct garden styles — Japanese traditional, English landscape, and French formal — into one of the city's finest green spaces.

Inokashira Park is a beloved, sprawling green space in the charming Kichijoji neighborhood, centered around a large boating lake and famous for its relaxed, artsy weekend atmosphere.

Meiji Jingu Gaien (the Outer Garden of Meiji Shrine) is a park and sports complex famous for its spectacular Icho Namiki — a 300-metre avenue of 146 ginkgo trees that turn brilliant gold in late November, creating one of Tokyo's most iconic autumn scenes.

Hama-rikyu is an exquisite Edo-era landscape garden sitting at the edge of Tokyo Bay, uniquely surrounded by towering modern skyscrapers. It features seawater-fed tidal ponds and a traditional tea house on an island.

Rikugien is considered one of Tokyo's two finest Edo-period strolling gardens, renowned for its literary design — each landscape element represents a scene from classical Japanese poetry.

Koishikawa Kōrakuen is one of Tokyo's oldest and most beautiful Japanese strolling gardens, built in the early Edo period (1629) by the Mito branch of the Tokugawa clan. Its carefully composed landscapes recreate famous scenes from China and Japan in miniature.