イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

Tachikawa Place Names: A History Walk Through Its Town-Name Origins

Sunagawa’s “numbers” and nine new town names

Head north from Tachikawa Station on the monorail toward the Tamagawa Aqueduct and the feel of the town names changes completely. Sakae-cho, Saiwai-cho, Wakaba-cho, Kashiwa-cho, Izumi-cho. Then Sunagawa-cho, Kamisunamachi, Ichibancho, Nishisunacho.

A train arriving at Musashi-Sunagawa Station on the Seibu Haijima Line; the station keeps the Sunagawa name
A train arriving at Musashi-Sunagawa Station on the Seibu Haijima Line; the station keeps the Sunagawa name
Photo: 小川小平 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

This was once Sunagawa village, later Sunagawa town. It was a shinden village — a settlement on newly opened land — founded early in the Edo period, with houses strung out in a long line along the Itsukaichi Kaido road. I’ll leave its history to another article in this series and talk here only about names.

For a long time, the people of Sunagawa referred to their addresses by number. Issue 4 of Tachikawa Monogatari says that names like “Sunagawa No. X” come from kumi, local community groups that predate the village and the city. Sunagawa had kumi numbered 1 to 10, and their names were long used as everyday names. Each kumi, it says, looked after its roads and waterways and organized events and farm work. Even today, Sunagawa’s number-names survive on intersection signs and road names.

One to ten. Less like names than like the numbers on players’ shirts. But shirt numbers have their merits. People in No. 1 kumi could say by number roughly where in the village they lived. In a village stretched out east to west, that was probably the clearest system of all.

Below the kumi, there were finer names still. The same issue writes that the area of today’s Saiwai-cho was once divided further by names such as Shimojuku, Hake and Tabori, and that Sunagawa had many such everyday names. Many old place names, it adds, were never written down.

Sunagawa town merged with Tachikawa City in 1963. According to issue 16 of Tachikawa Monogatari, before the merger there was a plan to bring the surrounding towns together into a “Greater Tachikawa City,” but it never came together. Negotiations with neighbouring Akishima City and Kunitachi town also failed, and only the merger with Sunagawa town bore fruit. Had a Greater Tachikawa been born, this article would have more town names in it, and my research would have taken a lot longer.

With the merger, Sunagawa town became “Sunagawa-cho” within Tachikawa City. According to an encyclopedia entry, its reading also changed at this point, from Sunagawa-machi to Sunagawa-cho — the same character for “town,” 町, read two ways. The town stayed a town; only its pronunciation shifted a little toward the city’s way of saying it.

After the merger came the job of sorting out addresses. In the city chronology for 1970, it says that the reorganization of Sunagawa town’s names and lot numbers began, along with “Sakae-cho launched.” Then came Wakaba-cho, Saiwai-cho and Izumi-cho in 1971, Kashiwa-cho in 1972, the new Sunagawa-cho in 1979, Kamisunamachi in 1981, Ichibancho in 1982 and Nishisunacho in 1983. Over thirteen years, one town became nine.

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Town names chosen by survey

How were these nine names chosen? Here lies the most human story among Tachikawa’s town names.

The local information site’s series, citing issue 3 of Tachikawa Minzoku (Tachikawa Folklore), published by the Tachikawa Folklore Society, explains that many of Sunagawa’s town names were chosen by surveys of residents. Six years after the merger, a council for reorganizing Sunagawa’s town names and lot numbers was set up, and the nine names were decided one by one, it says.

The first, Sakae-cho, brought together old settlements centered on former Minami-Sunagawa — Hachiken Shinden, Imokubo Shinden and Enokido Benten Shinden — with residential areas that had grown suddenly during and after the war. There were five candidates. The results: first, Sakae-cho; second, Aoba-cho; third, Misono-cho; fourth, Atago-cho; fifth, Toyo-cho. Atago-cho was proposed after the local Atago Shrine, and Toyo-cho survives today as the name of a residents’ association, the series says.

Wakaba-cho (“young leaves”) was made up of No. 10 kumi, known as Mae-shinden, part of No. 9 kumi, known as Tabori, and two housing estates, Keyakidai and Wakaba. “Maebori-cho,” combining the old names Mae-shinden and Tabori, was a candidate too, but the ranking went Wakaba-cho, Yayoi-cho, Sakura-cho, Higashino-cho, Maebori-cho. The proposal built from old names came last. For people who had just moved into the new estates, “young leaves” was surely a fitting name.

For Saiwai-cho (“happiness”), the candidates included Sakashita, an old place name in No. 7 kumi; Matsunami-cho (“pine row”), from the splendid avenue of pines along the Aoyagi Kaido road; Josui-cho, because Tamagawa-Josui Station on the Seibu Line lies to the north; plus Suehiro-cho and Saiwai-cho. Saiwai-cho gathered the most votes.

Kashiwa-cho was decided a little differently. The candidates were Daiei-cho, after Daijo, an old hamlet name in No. 6 kumi; Inari-cho, long a name in No. 7 kumi; Futaba-cho, from the name of a local kindergarten; Mutsumi-cho; and Kashiwa-cho, because the area of today’s Kashiwa-cho housing estate was once called Kashiwakubo. The result was a close race between Kashiwa-cho and Daiei-cho, and opinion on the council was split too. In the end, the series says, Kashiwa-cho won because a historical place name was thought best. The series sums up that Sakae-cho, Wakaba-cho and Saiwai-cho were new-style names with little connection to local history or origins, while Kashiwa-cho became a name rooted in history and tradition.

Izumi-cho (“spring”), the series reports from Tachikawa Minzoku, is named after an old tale that a spring once welled up in this area. And when it was named, it says, Izumi-cho had a municipal gymnasium, a junior high school and a high school, and apart from those was all former airfield land and the grounds of Tachikawa Aircraft — a town where not a single person lived. Even a town with no residents needs a proper name. Showa-era Izumi-cho was a town of former airfield land and aircraft-company grounds, dotted with a gymnasium and schools. Today the city hall stands there, along with large shopping facilities and an arena. Anyone who knew only Showa-era Izumi-cho, standing in today’s Izumi-cho, would doubt the address in their own notebook.

I think about the people who counted those survey votes. Kashiwa and Daiei, neck and neck. Maebori, in last place. The names of their addresses — something they would write every day — they chose themselves. When you think about it, there can’t be many town names decided like that.

Vanished names, surviving nicknames

When town names are renewed, some names disappear.

The cover of issue 10 of Tachikawa Monogatari uses a photo taken looking east from the North Exit of Tachikawa Station in December 1923 (Taisho 12), celebrating the start of town status. According to its caption, the name “Azuma-cho” visible on the right of the photo was an everyday name for the east side of the North Exit, around today’s Tachikawa Post Office. It was not an official town name, but that is what people called it. It was not among the seven names of 1942, and it is not on today’s map.

On the other hand, some names live on even after ceasing to be official. Sunagawa’s “numbers” survived as intersection names. Tenno Bridge over the Tamagawa Aqueduct is thought to take its name from a Tenno shrine that stood to the south, and was once also called Itsukaichi Bridge, issue 4 of Tachikawa Monogatari says. People’s mouths do not obey official decisions all that quickly.

And the seven names born in 1942 are, before anyone noticed, moving over to the side of the old names. According to the city chronology, work on the residence-indication system for the old Tachikawa City began in 1964, tidying up the chome and numbers below the town names. The names themselves did not change. Akebono stayed Akebono, Hagoromo stayed Hagoromo, for more than eighty years.

Lay out today’s sixteen town names on a map and Tachikawa’s history appears in three layers. “Tachikawa,” continuing since the Kamakura period, and “Shibasaki” and “Sunagawa,” inheriting the names of Edo villages. Akebono, Hagoromo, Nishiki, Takamatsu, Midori and Fujimi, devised in 1942, in the era of the sky capital. And Sakae, Wakaba, Saiwai, Kashiwa and Izumi, chosen by residents’ votes over thirteen years from 1970. Every day, we write out as our addresses names that have built up like layers of rock.

Solving the town-name mystery

Why did Akebono-cho and Hagoromo-cho swap names?

Half the answer that emerged from the records is this. At the city assembly in 1941, the two names were swapped. As for the reason, there is the story that the military said a “falling” Hagoromo was unsuitable for the district next to the airfield, and the view that “asahi” of the old Asahi-cho was reworded as the “akebono” of “in spring, the dawn.” Both are introduced by Tachikawa no Chimei, and neither can be fully confirmed.

The other half, to me, looks like this. The town names of 1942 were drawn both from dreams of the sky capital and from the disappearing landscape of Musashino, the old plain of grassland and woods west of Edo. Hagoromo came from the association with flight, Midori from the airfield’s grass, Takamatsu from the vanishing red-pine woods, Fujimi from the view of Fuji from the terrace. Perhaps the people who devised the names were looking up at the sky while at the same time regretting the pine woods and grassland disappearing from under their feet. And the swap was the result of being a little more careful about the dream of the sky. That reading may just be a traveller’s indulgence.

Some people probably think, “There’s nothing old left in Tachikawa.” The station area is made of buildings and decks, and hardly any trace of the old villages can be seen. But every time they write a line of their address, the people of Tachikawa write a place name from the Kamakura period, the name of an Edo village, the Showa dream of the sky, and a vote cast by residents. This town’s age survives not in its buildings, but in its names.

The rest of the answer is for each of us to work out standing in front of the station in Akebono-cho. In the town named for daybreak, another morning begins.

Quiz answer

The answer is B, Sakae-cho. According to the local information site’s series, citing issue 3 of Tachikawa Minzoku, the survey among five candidates came out: first Sakae-cho, second Aoba-cho, third Misono-cho, fourth Atago-cho, fifth Toyo-cho. The city chronology for 1970 also records “Sakae-cho launched.”

Before you go

  • A route along the town-name borders: From the North Exit of Tachikawa Station (Akebono-cho), cross the north–south free passage to the South Exit (Shibasaki-cho). Head south, turn east before the terrace cliff and you are in Nishiki-cho; further east is Hagoromo-cho. Just the four towns around the station make an unhurried walk of about an hour. You can check the town names on utility poles and block-number plates (in Japanese characters — the names in this article help you match them).
  • From central Tokyo and Kanagawa: Tachikawa Station is a single ride from Shinjuku on the JR Chuo Line. From Kanagawa, the JR Nambu Line links Kawasaki and Tachikawa stations with no change of trains.
  • To trace the terrace of Fujimi-cho and the memory of the Fuji mound: Tachikawa Museum of History and Folklore (立川市歴史民俗資料館, 3-12-34 Fujimi-cho, Tachikawa). According to the city’s facility guide, it is a 20-minute walk from Nishi-Tachikawa Station on the JR Ome Line, or a bus from Tachikawa Station’s South Exit to “Danchi-nishi,” then a 5-minute walk. Admission is free. The “Map of Shibasaki Village” (a city-designated tangible cultural property), showing the Edo village, is listed among its main exhibits. Check opening hours and closing days on the city’s page: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004849/1004905.html
  • To add old shrines in Shibasaki-cho: Suwa Shrine is a 10-minute walk from JR Tachikawa Station (according to the shrine’s official access page: https://suwajinja.or.jp/access.html ). Shrines are places of worship; walk quietly and follow any notices.
  • To see the “green” of Midori-cho: The Akebono Gate of Showa Kinen Park is about 10 minutes from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station (according to the official access page: https://www.showakinen-koen.jp/access/ ). Check admission and opening hours on the official site.
  • To look for Sunagawa’s “number” names: Head north on the Tama Monorail and keep an eye on the intersection names as you walk. Service information on the official site: https://www.tama-monorail.co.jp/
  • The city’s explanation of its name (City of Tachikawa, “Overview of Tachikawa City”): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/shisei/gaiyo/1005930/1005954.html
  • To dig deeper into the town names: Tachikawa no Chimei: Tachikawa-hen (Tachikawa City Board of Education, 1988; in Japanese) is held by the Tachikawa city libraries. Tachikawa Monogatari notes that it is distributed at the Museum of History and Folklore and the city’s administrative information corner.
  • General tips: Carry an IC transit card such as Suica or PASMO for trains, the monorail and buses. Most official pages are in Japanese; a browser’s translate function helps.

By the station, in Akebono-cho

Walk around looking for the borders between town names and you spend the whole time looking up at utility-pole signs and block plates you’d normally never notice. Your neck gets a little tired. On an evening after a day spent nose-to-map, the shoulders are especially stiff.

On the way back, you return to Akebono-cho, the town said to have swapped its name. A one-minute walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the 3rd floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a hot yoga studio laid with lava-stone plates. It also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30. As befits a town named for daybreak, its doors open in the morning.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 (tax included), with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat to rent included. Pregnant guests cannot join the lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

  • On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
  • Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

Of all the people who write “Akebono-cho” in the address box, probably none remember that it was once meant to be Hagoromo-cho. Forgotten, the name goes on doing its job, properly, every day.

Cover photo: People walking along the ginkgo avenue in Midori-cho, Tachikawa, photographed in November 2013 as the leaves turned yellow (Photo: KΛNΛTΛ / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

All Tachikawa Walks (English)

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