Part of the

Banchō is an area in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, consisting of the six "-banchō" districts, to , as well as parts of Kudanminami and Kudankita, and Fujimi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Fujimi. The Banchō area is located to the west of the Tokyo Imperial Palace, Imp ...

area, is an upscale, mostly residential district of Chiyoda,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. As of June 2020, the population of this district is 3,666 in 1,707 households. It borders the

Tokyo Imperial Palace is the main residence of the Emperor of Japan. It is a large park-like area located in the Chiyoda, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda district of the Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda ward of Tokyo and contains several buildings including the where the Emperor h ...

and the Chidorigafuchi moats to the east, Nibanchō and Yonbanchō to the west, Ichibanchō to the south, and Kudanminami to the north. Like Yonbanchō, its official English spelling, Sanbanchō, does not follow the Hepburn romanization standard.

History

Similarly to the rest of the

area, was the site of residences of the

Hatamoto A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the Shōgun, shogunates in History of Japan, Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred ...

soldiers in charge of guarding Edo Castle. Among those, the residence of Sano Masakoto (on present day site of Otsuma Women University), who became famous in 1784 by killing in the castle an unpopular government official. In 1804, the , (''Institute of Lectures of Japanese classics''), founded in 1793 and run by the blind scholar Hanawa Hokiichi was moved to Omote-Rokubancho, near nowadays Sanbancho-24. As the Shogunate was nearing its end,

Omura Masujiro Omura (小村) or Ōmura (大村) are Japanese surnames, but may also refer to: * Ōmura, Nagasaki, a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan * Ōmura clan, a clan of samurai of Medieval Japan of the province of Hizen * Omura's whale (''Balaenop ...

opened in 1856 , a

rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: , ), and by extension , is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the countr ...

institute in his residence, located next to nowadays

Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery is a national Japanese cemetery and memorial for 352,297 unidentified war dead of the Second World War, located near the inner moat of the Imperial Palace and Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Japan.__NOTOC__ Overview The recovery of remains from th ...

Tōgō Heihachirō , served as a '' gensui'' or admiral of the fleet in the Imperial Japanese Navy and became one of Japan's greatest naval heroes. As Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, he successfully confine ...

moved to Banchō in 1881 and lived there for 54 years. The location of his residence is the . The modern district was created on July 1, 1933, through a merger of the former districts of Ichibancho, Kami-Rokubancho and parts of Fujimicho 1-chome.

Kyōka

Sanbanchō was the subject of a famous

Kyōka ''Kyōka'' (, "wild" or "mad poetry") is a popular, parodic subgenre of the tanka form of Japanese poetry with a metre of 5-7-5-7-7. The form flourished during the Edo period (17th–18th centuries) and reached its zenith during the Tenmei era ...

by Hanawa Hokiichi during Edo times.

Landmarks

*Chidorigafuchi Green Way * Otsuma Women University *Otsuma Junior and Senior Highschool *Kudan Elementary School and Kindergarten *

Apostolic Nunciature An apostolic nunciature is a top-level diplomatic mission of the Holy See that is equivalent to an embassy. However, it neither issues visas nor has consul (representative), consulates. The head of the apostolic nunciature is called a ''nuncio ...

*Kudan campus of the

Nishogakusha University is a private university in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from th ...

* Tokyo Kasei-Gakuin University *Tokyo Kasei-Gakuin Junior and Senior Highschool * All-Japan Band Association *Togo Gensui Memorial Park

Education

operates public elementary and junior high schools. Kudan Elementary School (九段小学校) is the zoned elementary school for Sanbanchō. There is a freedom of choice system for junior high schools in Chiyoda Ward, and so there are no specific junior high school zones.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanbancho, Chiyoda, Tokyo Districts of Chiyoda, Tokyo