Residential Bancho by the Imperial Palace moat, cherry blossoms lit up at night along Chidorigafuchi in spring
The closest neighborhoods in the same city.
The north edge of Bancho runs right along Chidorigafuchi, the moat on the northwest side of the Imperial Palace, though the water and the promenade are outside the neighborhood. On spring evenings during cherry blossom season, the cherry trees along the promenade are lit up, and there's also a boating area on the moat.
Bancho is one of the Yamanote area's representative residential districts, mostly apartments and office buildings with no super-tall towers; more than 60% of the households in the neighborhood are here. Bancho Elementary School in Rokubancho has been open for more than 150 years, making it one of the longest-running elementary schools in Tokyo.
In Chiyoda City, nearly six in ten households are single-person households, but in this neighborhood it's only a little over four in ten. Children under 15 make up about 17%, higher than the City average; nearly half of the homes are owner-occupied.
Among Tokyo's 395 neighborhoods, this one ranks 5th for streetscape, and 14th for greenery, making it one of the tidiest neighborhoods in the whole city.
From Kojimachi Station, it's just a few minutes' walk to Yotsuya Station. Hanzomon Station is right in the neighborhood at Kojimachi 1-chome, and a direct train on the Hanzomon Line with no transfer gets you to Shibuya.
Bancho has almost no shopping streets, so for groceries you have to walk to Kojimachi-dori, Yasukuni-dori, or Nishichi-dori. This neighborhood ranks 48th for everyday shopping, which is also near the top but a notch lower than its ranking for streetscape.
In 2020, this neighborhood had about 130 people per hectare.
The name Bancho comes from the Oban-gumi, the hatamoto retainers responsible for guarding the shogun in the early Edo period, who lived here. The residences all looked so much alike, with no house numbers, that it gave rise to the saying "even people from Bancho don't know their way around Bancho".
These residences needed daily supplies, and Kojimachi-dori grew into a bustling commercial street in the Edo period by serving them. After the Toden streetcar stopped running in 1968, development here stalled for a while.
When Kojimachi Station opened in 1974, along with the widening of Shinjuku-dori, the area around Kojimachi-dori gradually turned into an office district.
Shops are scarce in Bancho, but the Nibancho project on the former site of Nippon Television is expected to fill in part of that gap: B1 and B2 will have a supermarket, connected directly to Kojimachi Station.
The building will have 15 floors above ground and stand about 76 meters tall, with about 2,500 square meters of plaza space kept on the north side. Construction on the main building is scheduled to start in September 2027 and finish in March 2031.
Compared with the 395 Tokyo neighborhoods in this guide (scores 0–10)
Hospitals with inpatient beds (2020 data), public elementary and junior high schools whose catchment covers this area, high schools and universities within 1 km, stations, parks of 1 ha or more, and large shopping malls and department stores. Many Tokyo junior high students attend private schools, so junior high catchments are only a guide.
Maps show the shops and the sights. What a street is like, you only know by walking it. TidyMap uses AI street imagery analysis and public facility data to turn each area's street environment and everyday convenience into something you can compare. Search an address and look at the street outside first.
How to read it: yellow = poor, blue = good; grey = not enough data
TidyMap rates the street environment and everyday convenience. It does not assess the home itself, safety, noise or actual living experience. Street environment scores use AI assessments of imagery; convenience scores use public facility data.
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