Narita International Airport (成田国際空港, Narita Kokusai Kūkō) (IATA: NRT, ICAO: RJAA) — formerly and originally known as New Tokyo International Airport (新東京国際空港, Shin Tōkyō Kokusai Kūkō) — is the secondary international airport serving the Greater Tokyo Area, the other being Haneda Airport (HND). It is about 60 km (37 mi) east of central Tokyo in Narita, Chiba. The facility, since July 2019, covers 1,137 hectares (2,810 acres) of land and construction to expand to nearly 2,300 ha (5,700 acres) is underway.
The conceptualization of Narita was highly controversial and remains so to the present day, especially among local residents in the area. This has led to the Sanrizuka Struggle, stemming from the government's decision to construct the airport without consulting most residents in the area, as well as expropriating their lands in the process. Even after the airport was eventually completed, air traffic movements have been controlled under various noise related operating restrictions due to its direct proximity with residential neighborhoods, including a house with a farm that is located right in between the runways. As a result, the airport must be closed from 00:00 (12:00am) to 06:00 (6:00am) the next day to minimize the noise pollution impact around the airport. (Full article...)
Image 17A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Tokyo)
Image 23Picture of the Upper Class, a c. 1794–1795 painting by Utamaro. The woman on the left is lower in class than the woman on the right, who wears more colorful clothes (from History of Tokyo)
Image 43The five-story pagoda of Kan'ei-ji, which was constructed during the reign of Tokugawa Hidetada and required the building of the Kimon (Devil's Gate) (from History of Tokyo)