Asakusa
town located in Taitō-ku, Tokyo
Asakusa (浅草; Japanese: [asakɯ̥sa] ) is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. It is known for Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals, such as Sanja Matsuri.
History
The development of Asakusa as an entertainment district during the Edo period came about in part because of the neighboring district, Kuramae. Kuramae was a district of storehouses for rice, which was then used as payment for servants of the feudal government. The keepers (fudasashi) of these storage houses initially stored the rice for a small fee, but over the years began exchanging the rice for money or selling it to local shopkeepers at a margin. Through such trading, many fudasashi came to have a considerable amount of disposable income and as result theaters and geisha houses began to spring up in nearby Asakusa.
For most of the 20th century, Asakusa remained a major entertainment district in Tokyo. The rokku or "Sixth District" was in particular famous as a theater district, featuring famous cinemas such as the Denkikan. The golden years of Asakusa are vividly portrayed in Yasunari Kawabata's novel The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (1930).
“Asakusa” enters the record as town located in Taitō-ku, Tokyo. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Asakusa, town and located can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Asakusa” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Asakusa, town and located provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q720644. VIAF identifies the subject as 260258500. Authority coordinates are 35.715, 139.797. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Asakusa”, its source revision and the description used here.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Asakusa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.