Togoshi Ginza (Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan)

What makes this place special?

At a Glance

Togoshi Ginza is a long shopping street in Shinagawa ward, Tokyo, south of Gotanda Station on the Yamanote Line. Stretching about 1.3 kilometers, it is among the longest shopping streets in the Kanto region and holds around 400 shops. Three neighborhood associations share the street, and each uses its own arch and street lamp design.

The name goes back to the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. The low-lying Togoshi area then struggled with flooding and muddy roads, so the local shopping district took the bricks removed from the original Ginza and laid them for drainage work. It named itself Togoshi Ginza because of that link, and the street is said to be the first of more than 300 Ginza shopping streets across Japan. Since 2009, individual shops have also developed their own Togoshi Ginza croquettes as a local street-food specialty.