thumb|Map of Tokyo City before the [[1923 Great Kantō earthquake]]
thumb|Tokyo Prefectural Office and [[Tokyo City Hall]]
thumb|Administrative map of "Greater Tokyo" (大東京 Dai-Tōkyō), the merger of 82 municipalities into Tokyo City in 1932, and two smaller mergers in 1936
was a municipality in Japan and capital of Tokyo Prefecture (or Tokyo-fu) which existed from 1 May 1889 until the establishment of Tokyo Metropolis on 1 July 1943. The historical boundaries of Tokyo City are now occupied by the special wards of Tokyo. The defunct city and its prefecture became what is now Tokyo, also known as the Tokyo Metropolis or, ambiguously, Tokyo Prefecture.
History
In 1868, the city of Edo, seat of the Tokugawa government, was renamed Tokyo, and the offices of Tokyo Prefecture (-fu) were opened.
In 1888, the central government created the legal framework for the current system of cities (shi) that granted some basic local autonomy rights – with some similarities to Prussia's system of local self-government as Meiji government advisor Albert Mosse heavily influenced the organization of local government. But under a special imperial regulation, Tokyo City, like Kyoto City and Osaka City, initially did not maintain a separate mayor; instead, the (appointed) governor of Tokyo Prefecture served as mayor of Tokyo City. The Tokyo city council/assembly (Tōkyō-shikai) was first elected in May 1889.
Tokyo became the second-largest city in the world (population 4.9 million) upon absorbing several outlying districts in July 1932, giving the city a total of 35 wards.