上野

The name 上野 pairs 上 (ue, upper or above) with 野 (no, field or moorland). The plateau north of central Edo sat eight to twelve meters above the surrounding lowlands, making it genuinely high ground in an otherwise flat basin. Early administrative records of the region described it simply as the elevated plain. An upper moor that looked down over the city below.

In 1625, the Tendai monk Tenkai, an advisor to shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, chose this plateau for a temple complex called Kan'ei-ji. He designed it as a spiritual guardian of Edo, positioned northeast to deflect malevolent forces according to Chinese geomantic principles. Tenkai modeled the project on Enryaku-ji, the Tendai monastery on Mount Hiei that had protected Kyoto for centuries. The name Ueno was already fixed to the plateau; Tenkai built into the place-name, not the reverse.

When the Tokugawa shogunate fell in 1868, the last loyalist stand took place at Ueno. Some two thousand Shogitai militia members occupied Kan'ei-ji's grounds on May 15 and Imperial forces attacked by morning. The battle lasted half a day; the temple complex burned. The new Meiji government accepted German physician Erwin von Bälz's proposal and opened Ueno Park in 1873 as Japan's first Western-style public park.

The park that replaced the battlefield became the container for Japan's national institutions. The Tokyo National Museum opened in 1882, the National Science Museum in 1877, the Ueno Zoo in 1882. Cherry trees planted along the park's paths made Ueno one of Japan's most celebrated hanami sites each spring. The upper moor that once held a shogunal temple and then a battlefield now holds the country's oldest public museum. The elevated ground kept its name through temple, battle, and festival.