So that’s why Edo changed its name to To-kyo when the government moved there?
YES.＼(^o^)／ good question! Let’s be logical here.
Kyoto is 京都, and the individual kanji roughly means, 京 for the place where the Imperial family lives in (thus the most important, prosperous city), and 都 is “the metropolitan”.
Tokyo is 東京. As 東 means “the east”, it naturally means the eastern metropolitan where the government(and the imperial family) is located.
While Tokyo(東京） literally means “eastern city”, there is a counterpart word Saikyo（西京）, which of course means “western city”.
There is a famous cooking method called Saikyo-yaki(Saikyo grill). It’s usually a grilled fish fillet which was marinated in white miso, sugar, and some mirin(sweeten sake) for a day or two. Kyoto is famous for its traditional white miso(and usually slightly sweet) cookings even today:)
squke said: That’s very interesting. Thanks for the information! Is ever ‘Saikyo’ used for Kyoto in some other sense?
“Saikyo” remains as a name of a place. Kyoto city is divided in several wards, and one of them is Saikyo-ward. There are local companies such as Saikyo bank and Saikyo bus…it’s just a name now:)
