Place comparison
Tokyo’s 23 special wards compared with Taipei City: area, population and density
Tokyo’s 23 special wards cover about 2.3 times Taipei City’s land area with about four times the residents, giving a density roughly 1.8 times Taipei’s.
Equal-area outline comparison
Outlines are centered and scaled by official land area; position does not show geographic location.
Area
Population
Population density
Area data date
Population data date
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The guide below belongs to this pair: Tokyo 23 Special Wards and Taipei City. Change the selector above and the page follows, so the reading always matches the tool.
Direct answer
How different are Tokyo 23 Special Wards and Taipei City?
Tokyo 23 Special Wards covers 627.5 km²; Tokyo 23 Special Wards's area is 2.31 times Taipei City's. Its reported population is 9,873,999; Tokyo 23 Special Wards's population is 4.05 times Taipei City's. By average density, Tokyo 23 Special Wards's population density is 1.75 times Taipei City's.
Population difference
Tokyo 23 Special Wards's population is 4.05 times Taipei City's 9,873,999 · 2,439,507Density difference
Tokyo 23 Special Wards's population density is 1.75 times Taipei City's 15,735.2 /km² · 8,975.4 /km²Full data and sources for each place: Tokyo 23 Special Wards, Taipei City
Straight-line distance between geometric centres: about 2097 km; time difference: 1 hours.
On a familiar scale
- Tokyo 23 Special Wards ≈ 58% of Changhua County (reference rung) 64 m² of land per resident
- Taipei City ≈ 1.79 × Kinmen County (reference rung) 111 m² of land per resident
Reference scales come from Department of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior: Land area, households and population density by township and district (year-end 2025) , as of 2025-12-31.
How to read it
The 23 wards are the right unit to put beside Taipei City. Tokyo Metropolis is a prefecture that also administers mountains and remote Pacific islands, so comparing it with a city overstates the difference.
Geography and shape
The 23 special wards occupy the flat eastern part of Tokyo Metropolis, where the Kanto Plain meets Tokyo Bay. Taipei City fills a basin ringed by hills, with Yangmingshan National Park inside its boundary. The wards therefore have far more usable flat land as a share of their area than the outline alone suggests.
Population context
The wards hold roughly four times Taipei City’s residents on about 2.3 times the land. Both are daytime magnets that draw in commuters from much larger surrounding areas, so the registered or resident counts understate how many people are actually present on a weekday.
Boundaries and definitions
Japan’s Geospatial Information Authority marks the 23-ward subtotal as a reference value and it includes 4.68 km² of reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay that belongs to no single ward, so the area cannot be rebuilt by adding the wards up or by measuring the drawn polygon. Taipei City uses official administrative land area and household registration at year-end 2025.
Tokyo 23 Special Wards: The 23 special wards only, not Tokyo Metropolis and not the wider Greater Tokyo area. The wards hold about 70% of the metropolis population on under 30% of its land; the metropolis additionally contains 26 cities, 13 towns and villages and the Izu and Ogasawara islands. The area is a Geospatial Information Authority reference value because five wards have partly undetermined boundaries, and it includes 4.68 km² of river-mouth and bay landfill not assigned to any individual ward. Daytime population is far larger than the resident count: the 2020 census recorded 12.35 million people in the wards on a weekday.
Taipei City: Taipei City, the special municipality alone. Area and registered population come from the same Ministry of the Interior table at the same year-end 2025 reference date, so the density is like for like. The figure excludes New Taipei City: “Taipei” in everyday speech often means the two cities together (2,324.3664 km², 6,484,338 residents) or the wider metropolitan area, which has no single official boundary. Population is household registration, not resident presence.
In-depth guide
How should Tokyo 23 Special Wards and Taipei City be understood in context?
Putting Tokyo beside Taipei City requires choosing which Tokyo. This page uses the 23 special wards, the urban core, because Tokyo Metropolis is a prefecture that also administers mountains and Pacific islands hundreds of kilometres offshore.
Why the 23 wards and not Tokyo Metropolis
Tokyo Metropolis includes the Tama area’s mountains and the Izu and Ogasawara island chains, which stretch roughly a thousand kilometres into the Pacific. Any outline drawn for the metropolis is mostly empty sea, and any density computed for it is diluted by land almost nobody lives on. Against a compact city like Taipei, that comparison would be arithmetically correct and practically misleading.
The 23 wards are also the Tokyo a visitor actually experiences, and the unit most Japanese statistics on urban Tokyo are tabulated by. Choosing it is not a shortcut around the harder number; it is the unit that matches the question people are asking.
The 23-ward area cannot be rebuilt from its parts
Japan’s Geospatial Information Authority publishes the 23-ward subtotal with a reference-value mark, because it includes about 4.68 km² of reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay that belongs to no single ward. Adding the 23 wards together therefore does not reproduce the published total, and measuring the drawn polygon does not either.
This is worth stating because the usual way to check a figure — add the parts, or measure the shape — fails here for a documented reason rather than because someone made an error. Taipei City has no equivalent problem: its area and population come from one Ministry of the Interior table at one reference date.
Questions people ask
About this geographic comparison
Which is bigger, Tokyo 23 Special Wards or Taipei City?
Tokyo 23 Special Wards is bigger, with a land area about 2.31× that of Taipei City (627.5 vs 271.8 km²).
How do Tokyo 23 Special Wards and Taipei City differ in area, population and density?
Tokyo 23 Special Wards is 2.31× the size of Taipei City — 627.5 km² vs 271.8 km². Population is 4.05× higher; average density is 1.75× higher. Each side’s scope and reference date are set out under “Boundaries and definitions” on this page.
Why use the 23 wards instead of Tokyo Metropolis?
Because the wards are the urban core a visitor actually experiences, and because Tokyo Metropolis administers the Izu and Ogasawara islands hundreds of kilometres out to sea, which distorts both the outline and the density.
Is Tokyo denser than Taipei?
On these averages yes: the 23 wards run roughly 1.8 times Taipei City’s density. Both averages include ground almost nobody lives on, so neither describes a specific neighbourhood.
Sources
- Geospatial Information Authority of Japan: Area by prefecture and municipality as of October 1, 2024 (E2-No.86), special wards subtotal
- Tokyo Metropolitan Government: Estimated population of Tokyo as of October 1, 2024
- Department of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior: Land area, households and population density by township and district (year-end 2025, ROC 114)
- Department of Household Registration, Ministry of the Interior: Land area, households and population density by township and district (year-end 2025, ROC 114)
Outline data: