Sumida is one of the 23 wards that make up Greater Tokyo, located along the Sumida River. It used to be one of the poorest, oldest neighborhoods in the city: today, although the charm of yesteryear is still evident in a few areas, it has become one of the places with the highest concentration of skyscrapers in Tokyo.
For the Japanese, Sumida is, above all, the home of Sumo wrestling, thanks to the presence here of the Ryōgoku Kokugikan, the largest stadium in Tokyo dedicated to this extremely popular sport.
The highlight of the Sumida skyline is the Tokyo SkyTree, a TV broadcasting and observation tower that reached a height of 634 meters in March 2011 with the addition of an antenna that has made it the tallest broadcasting tower in the world, and the world’s second tallest structure; only the 830-meter Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai is taller.
This futuristic engineering achievement is earthquake-resistant and weatherproof. The base is shaped like a tripod, but from a height of about 350 meters upwards the tower becomes cylindrical.
There are two observation platforms you can go up to, one at a height of 350 meters, with a capacity of up to 2000 people, and another at 450 meters, with a capacity of 900 people. The latter has a spiral walkway that allows you to climb the last 5 meters up to the highest point of the platform, where the glass floor offers breath-taking views of the city below.
There are a number of interesting places to visit in Sumida, such as the Edo-Tokyo Museum, if you’re interested in the history of Tokyo, and the famous Sumida Aquarium, the largest in the city, which I’ll be telling you about in the next file.
An interesting fact: as I already mentioned, the tower has one of the most cutting-edge, anti-seismic, reinforced concrete structures in the world, complemented by a system of oil dampers designed to cushion the building from impact in the event of an earthquake.
Language: English