Nerima (練馬区, Nerima-ku; Japanese pronunciation:[nè̞.ɾʲí.mä́(.kɯ̈̀),né̞.ɾʲì.mä̀]) is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It is mainly a residential ward, located in the northwest of the Wards Area of Tokyo (東京都区部, Tōkyō-to kubu). It split from Itabashi Ward on August 1, 1947, making it the newest of the 23 wards. It ranks 20th in official ward order under the Local Government Code of Japan, where it is assigned code 13120.
As of 1June2025[update], the ward has an estimated total population of 749,451 people. It has 399,800 households, and 21.6% of the ward's population is elderly (over the age of 65). The total area of the ward is 48.08 km2, which gives a population density of 15,591 persons per km2.
The ward is roughly rectangular, measuring 10km east to west and 4km to 7km north to south, with an area of 48.08km2. It accounts for about 7.7% of the total area of the 23 wards, making it the 5th largest of the 23 wards.
To the northwest, there is a small exclave called Nishi-Ōizumimachi, enclaved within the city of Niiza in Saitama Prefecture. The ward is working to incorporate the exclave into Saitama Prefecture, but residents are opposed to the plan.
The main rivers are the Shakujii River and the Shirako River, and the difference in elevation is small. The Senkawa Aqueduct flows through the ward. Groundwater from the Musashino Plateau surfaces as springs, creating the Sambōji Pond, Shakujii Pond, and Fujimi Pond.
In the past, the Naka-Arai River and the Tagara Irrigation Canal flowed through the ward, but have dried out since. Extinct ponds are the Nukui Pond and the Igashira Pond.
Nerima Ward has implemented an addressing system based on the Act on Residential Addresses (Act No. 119 of 10 May 1962) in most areas. Based on this system, the ward comprises 46 neighborhoods (町, machi), each further divided into numbered neighborhood blocks called chōme (丁目) or Streets, which have local neighborhood associations called chōnaikai (町内会).
The neighborhoods are as follows, arranged by postal code and postal area:
In Nerima Ward, the first three digits of the postal code are either 176, 177, 178, or 179, depending on the area.
〒176-00XX: Nerima Post Office
〒177-00XX: Shakujii Post Office
〒178-00XX: Ōizumi Post Office
〒179-00XX: Hikarigaoka Post Office
Climate
During summer months, the Nerima Ward experiences intense heat, with many days exceeding 35°C and peak temperatures sometimes reaching 38°C. During winter months, it recorded a low of -7.0°C in 2018, and between January and March each year, low-pressure systems approaching from the south often bring snowfall, when the costal wards in downtown Tokyo receives only rain or sleet.
These temperature variations, combined with drainage from local rivers and irrigation canals, create ideal conditions for agriculture. Nerima has become renowned for its specialty crops, including Nerima daikon, cabbage, blueberries, and grapes.
Annual precipitation typically ranges from 1,000 to 2,000 millimeters, showing no clear long-term trends.
Climate data for Nerima (2013−2020 normals, extremes 2012−present)
The Making of Harry Potter - Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo
Toshimaen
Toshimaen (closed permanently on 31 August 2020) was an amusement park in Nerima Ward. The majority of the former Toshimaen site was purchased by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government after its closure, and is planned to be developed as a large park that serves as a base for use in event of a disaster. Another part of it was used to reopen as The Making of Harry Potter - Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo.
Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter
Toshimaen reopened as Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter, announced in August 2020 and opened on 16 June 2023, Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter is the second such park in the world, after the one in London, which opened in 2012. It is located in Nerima Ward, on part of the now-defunct Toshimaen amusement park site. Similar to its counterpart in London, the 30,000 square-meter attraction in Tokyo offers visitors a walking tour through some of the recreated famous film sets including the Great Hall, the Forbidden Forest, and the Diagon Alley. It also displays film sets, costumes, and props that were used in the Harry Potter films. In addition to Harry Potter, it also covers the Fantastic Beasts spin-offs. Steam locomotive 4920 Dumbleton Hall, which is identical to the locomotive used in the Harry Potter movies, will be an exhibit.
Toponym
The earliest confirmed appearance of the name Nerima dates to a 1362 document titled Musashi-no-kuni Ganmon (武蔵国願文), where it was recorded phonetically as Nerima-gō (ねりま郷).
The earliest known record using the kanji characters "練馬" appears over a century later in the 1480 Ōta Dōkan-jō (太田道灌状), a military report referencing Nerima Castle (練馬城).
While the exact etymological origin of the name remains unknown, several theories exist:
It derives from neriba (ねり場), a place where the red clay of the Kanto loam layer was kneaded (neru).
It comes from nenuma (根沼), meaning "deep swamps," which were numerous in the secluded lowlands of the Shakujii River basin.
It is a corruption of Norinuma (のりぬま / 乗沼 or 乗瀦), a post station located in Musashi Province during the Nara period. While some historians estimate this station was situated near the Hakusan Shrine in modern-day Nerima, another prominent theory places it in Amanuma, Suginami Ward.
During the Middle Ages, a retainer of the ruling Toshima clan was a master of horsemanship, and the practice of training and breaking in horses (馬) was referred to as neru (練る).
In English, the ward sometimes translates ward as city, as do some of the other special wards of Tokyo. In maps and street signs, it also uses the word ward, or simply -ku.
History
Prehistory
People first began living in Nerima during the Paleolithic period. Archaeological evidence that bears witness to this has been discovered throughout the ward, such as the Paleolithic spear-point stone tools excavated from the Musashi-Seki site, which are registered as cultural property of the ward.
During the Heian period, most of Nerima was part of Toshima District (豊嶋郡, Toshima-gun), which included the city of Edo, in Musashi Province. By the end of the Heian period, the Toshima clan had control of the district.
The leyend has it that when Dōkan launched his final assault on Shakujii Castle, the castle's lord Toshima Yasutsune faced inevitable defeat. Yasutsune placed a golden saddle, a treasured heirloom of the Toshima clan, on his snow-white horse and rode to the cliff behind the castle. With Dōkan's soldiers watching from below, he spurred his horse over the edge, plunging into the waters of Sanbōji Pond (located in present-day Shakujii Park), where both horse and rider drowned. Yasutsune had a beautiful second daughter called Princess Teruhime, who was so saddened by her father's death that she threw herself into the same pond and drowned with him. Moved by compassion for the princess, Dōkan ordered a memorial mound built in her honor. Local folklore says that those who climb the old pine tree near Teruhime's mound can glimpse the golden saddle still gleaming at the bottom of the pond. This tree is called Teruhi-no-Matsu. Today, Nerima Ward commemorates the princess with an annual festival called the Teruhime Matsuri.
After the defeat of the Toshima clan, the area came under the influence of the Ōta clan, and then the Hōjō clan, before transitioning into the Tokugawa era.
Edo period
Farmer cultivating Nerima daikon in Tokyo City (Winter, c. 1935)
During the Edo period, Nerima developed as a major suburban farming village in Toshima District, that supplied the city of Edo with daikon, burdock, and potatoes, among other products. During this period, the area's specialty, Nerima daikon developed. The earliest reference of Nerima daikon is from the 1683 geography book Murasaki-no-Hitomoto (『紫の一本』) edited by Toda Mosui. One of the legends about its origin is related to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the 5th shogun of the Edo shogunate, who built a villa in the village of Shimo-Nerima before becoming shogun, and brought seeds of Miyashige daikon from Owari to a vacant lot within the villa and cultivated them. The Senkawa Aqueduct, which is now almost a culvert, was developed by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1696 and became a valuable water resource for agriculture in Nerima at the time.
Map of Kita-Toshima District in 1889. The yellow area is today's Nerima Ward, and the orange area is today's Itabashi Ward.
After the Boshin War, the city of Edo was removed from Toshima District, and was renamed Tokyo City. In 1878, during the abolition of the han system in the Meiji era, the rest of Toshima District was divided into Kita-Toshima District (北豊島郡, Kita-Toshima-gun) and Minami-Toshima District (南豊島郡, Minami-Toshima-gun). Nerima was incorporated into Kita-Toshima District under the District, Town and Village Organization Act of 1878 (郡区町村編成法).
On 1 October 1932, Kita-Toshima District merged into Tokyo City as part of Itabashi Ward, including the town of Nerima and the villages of Kami-Nerima, Naka-Arai, Shakujii, and Ōizumi.
During the Second World War, the Imperial Japanese Army operated Narimasu Airfield in the Nerima area in Itabashi Ward. At its peak, the earthworks were rushed, with 3,000 people working in day and night shifts each day. The Imperial Japanese Army's 47th Air Squadron, 43rd Airfield Battalion, and the Narimasu Detachment Maintenance Unit of the Tachikawa Branch of the Air Arsenal were based there.
Towards the end of the war, it became a place for the Southern Operation Squadron to regain its fighting strength, and the 48th and 231st Shinbu Special Attack Units were stationed here and used it as a training ground. In addition, the 101st, 102nd, and 103rd Air Squadrons were also relocated there.
Remnants of its wartime infrastructure can still be seen today. Concrete bunkers that once housed aircraft remain visible in Hikarigaoka Park, and the runway is now the main street in front of the IMA department store in Hikarigaoka.
During the occupation of Japan, the occupying Allied forces renamed the former Narimasu Airfield to Grant Heights on 3 March 1947. On 5 April, the construction of family quarters for the United States Army Air Forces began, and was finished in June 1948.
Independence
Monument to commemorate the ward's independence from Itabashi Ward
In 1946, shortly after the end of the war, the local government system was reviewed by a memorandum of the Allied Forces. One of the measures was to merge the then 35 wards of Tokyo into 22 wards. The people of the Nerima area in Itabashi Ward had long been troubled by the distance of the Itabashi Ward Office. Since the establishment of Itabashi Ward in 1932, there have been several talks about separating the Nerima region, but they had not been successful. During the review of the ward system, the town council presidents, ward assembly members, and various organization leaders of Nerima, Shakujii, and Ōizumi got together to try to make Nerima independent from Itabashi Ward, but the purpose of the occupying forces was to merge wards, not create new ones. In March 1947, the wards of Tokyo were merged into 22 wards, with Nerima still being part of Itabashi Ward. After much campaigning, five months after the establishment of the 22 special wards, on 1 August, Nerima Ward was established and declared independent from Itabashi Ward, becoming the 23rd special ward of Tokyo. Nerima Ward's independence day is commemorated annually.
Teruhime Matsuri (April or May): A festival held annually in Shakujii Park in honor of Teruhime, daughter of Toshima Yasutsune, lord of Shakujii Castle during the Muromachi period. People dressed in period costumes as Princess Teruhime, Lord Yasutsune, the wife, members of the Toshima clan, and retainers perform the stage play The Legend of Teruhime and parade around the park. The roles of the princes, the mother, and the lord are open to the public, and can be played by people living in Nerima Ward.
Tori-no-Ichi (November): A festival held at Nerima Ōtori Shrine in the Toyotama-Kita neighborhood every November on the day of the rooster, attracting tens of thousands of people.
Seki-no-Boroichi Market (December): A traditional flea market which has been held every December since 1751 during the Edo period in Honryūji Temple, in the Sekimachi-Kita neighborhood, next to Musashi-Seki Station.
Traditional Products
Pickled daikon being produced in Wakamiya Park, in the Takamatsu neighborhood of Nerima Ward
Pickled vegetables, centered around pickled daikon (takuan)
Sweets such as monaka and manjū featuring Nerima daikon motifs
Tokyo hand-painted yuzen (textile dyeing)
Food
Nerima Spaghetti (pasta dish that uses grated Nerima daikon and canned tuna for the sauce, which is then topped with seaweed flakes). This dish is usually served in elementary schools and is a staple in many Nerima citizens' childhood.
Animation
Nerima Ward is the birthplace of Japanese anime, where Japan's first full-length color theatrical anime film The Tale of the White Serpent (1958) was produced. It is also the birthplace of television anime, where the world's first weekly broadcast full-scale TV anime series Astro Boy (black and white) was created in 1963, and Japan's first full-color TV anime series Jungle Emperor Leo began in 1965.
Nerima Ward, home to Toei Animation (formerly Toei Films) and Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production (currently unrelated to Tezuka Productions), has 94 anime-related companies (as of 2007), making it Japan's largest concentration of anime-related businesses. Numerous works have been produced here and set in this location.
Beyond anime, this area has also been frequently used for filming tokusatsu (special effects) productions, particularly the long-running Super Sentai series that has continued for 30 years, and Kamen Rider.
Since 2002, the annual Nerima Anime Festival has been held in Ōizumi-Gakuen, working with shopping districts and NPOs to promote anime.
In 2004, the Nerima Animation Council was established by about 50 businesses including Mushi Production and Toei Animation to promote anime in Nerima Ward. The council has been aiming to build an anime museum in the ward since its predecessor NPO Anime Museum Association was established in 1994. However, progress has stalled due to concerns about duplication after Toei Animation independently created the Toei Animation Gallery (now Toei Animation Museum) in 2003.
Toei Animation Museum
Manga
Nerima Ward attracted many manga artists including Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori to establish their residences and workplaces due to its convenient transportation access to publishing companies in Chiyoda Ward's Hitotsubashi and Kanda-Jinbōchō areas, and Bunkyō Ward's Otowa area. Other advantages included proximity to art supply stores and being somewhat removed from distracting entertainment districts, allowing for concentrated work.
Many manga artists, both famous and unknown, have permanently resided or temporarily lived here, including Reiji Matsumoto, Keizo Shimada, Noboru Baba, Jiro Ota, Fujio Akatsuka, Sanpei Furuya, Tetsuya Chiba, Akio Chiba, Asao Takamori (Ikki Kajiwara), Fujiko Fujio, Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya, Yasumi Yoshizawa, Kenshi Hirokane, Fumi Saimon, Hideo Azuma, Rumiko Takahashi, and Yoshinori Kobayashi. Many manga works feature settings and backgrounds based on Nerima Ward.
In Nerima Ward's Ōizumi area, there existed the Ōizumi Salon, the female manga artist version of Tokiwa-so, where many renowned female manga artists including Moto Hagio and Keiko Takemiya developed their careers.
References in popular culture
Nerima Ward is the setting for many manga and anime.
In the 1999 animated short film, Tai and the rest of the DigiDestined were residents of Hikarigaoka (often renamed Highton View Terrace in the English dub). Following the Parrotmon incident, many of the DigiDestined parents moved to Odaiba. In episode 29 of the TV series, the location served to give a recollection of the incident to the DigiDestined, who had arrived in search of the eighth child. They later go to Hikarigaoka Park and Nerima Station.
Nobita Nobi and his friends live in Nerima Ward, close to the Seibu Line, in a fictional neighborhood called Tsukimidai-Susukigahara. Suneo Honekawa's address is Tokyo, Nerima Ward, Tsukimidai-Susukigahara 3-10-5 (東京都練馬区月見台すすきヶ原3-10-5).
A popular manga based on classical music that has been made into an anime and a live-action film. The Momogaoka College of Music that appears in the work is modeled after the Ekoda campus of Musashino Academia Musicae in Nerima Ward. The nearest station, Ekoda Station, was once decorated with an illustration of the main character.
Nerima is the setting of Takahashi's long-running and popular manga and anime series. Soun Tendo's dojo, where the main story takes place, is in Nerima Ward. As one of the first series in either media to achieve widespread popularity in the English-speaking world, Ranma introduced Nerima to Western audiences, with several locations recognizable as backgrounds, such as Shakujii River and Shakujii Park.
The sports manga about volleyball depicts the scenery around Ekoda Station in Nerima Ward and around Toshimaen Station. In particular, the area around Ekoda Station is depicted a lot, and the ramen shop that the main characters go to in the manga is actually a real shop. In the story, a station called Isasaka is created between the real stations of Ekoda and Sakuradai.
The school comedy manga features station names that parody the Fujimidai and Nakamurabashi stations on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line, and is set in Nerima Ward.
The high school baseball manga and anime series is set in Nerima Ward, and the scenery of the ward frequently appears in the work. Also, the Neapolitan served at the coffee shop Minamikaze that appears in the work is modeled after the Neapolitan served at the coffee shop Andes near Nerima Station.
The main characters travel through Nerima Ward aboard a Seibu 2000 series commuter train on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line. Their journey takes them past numerous stations throughout Nerima Ward, all of which have been altered by the catastrophic 7G Incident. The series features a mise en abyme element through Alice in Nerima, a popular fictional anime and manga that exists within the show's universe, whose characters are manifested in reality as a consequence of the same incident.
The series is set in Nerima Ward. The address of the main character, Ataru Moroboshi, is in a fictional neighborhood in Nerima Ward called Tomobiki-chō (友引町), translated as Tomobiki Town.
The manga and anime is set in Nerima Ward, and the scenery of the ward and the Seibu Ikebukuro Line that runs through Nerima are often depicted in the work.
In films
Ju On (The Grudge)
The popular Japanese horror franchise, Ju On, also known as The Grudge, takes place predominantly in a house in Nerima Ward.
Nerima Ward is governed by a directly elected ward mayor and a ward assembly, with the current ward mayor serving four-year terms. Like other Tokyo wards, Nerima has significant autonomy in local affairs such as education, welfare services, and urban planning, while the Tokyo Metropolitan Government handles broader regional issues like water supply and major infrastructure. The ward assembly, composed of members elected from local districts, deliberates on budgets, ordinances, and policies. The ward government operates various public services including libraries, community centers, and local administrative offices.
The ward office and city hall is in Toyotama-Kita, close to Nerima Station.
Designation
Nerima is designated as a special ward of Tokyo. Even though it is not designated as a "city" (市, shi), in English, Nerima translates its designation as a "ward" (区, ku) to "city" and refers to itself as Nerima City, following the practice of several other Tokyo special wards. However, in Japanese, it maintains its official designation as Nerima Ward (練馬区, Nerima-ku), with its government office referred to as the Ward Office (区役所, kuyakusho) and its leader as the Ward Mayor (区長, kuchō).
Ward Mayor
Ward Mayor (区長, kuchō)：Ken'ichi Yoshida (吉田健一, 1st term）
Term: 20 April 2026 - 19 April 2030 (expected)
Ward Residents' Offices
Administrative services are provided through a network of six local ward residents' offices (区民事務所, kumin jimusho) strategically positioned throughout the ward.
Nerima prepares the Nerima News Azalea, a city newsletter, in English.
Other
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Nerima Base
US Forces, Grant Heights, Family Housing Area, later '40s to 1973.
International relations
Nerima has a twin-town relationship with Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. Nerima Gardens in Ipswich commemorates the tie. It also has a twin-town relationship with Haidian District, Beijing, China.
↑Hirayama, Teruo, ed. (15 September 2010) [30 June 1960]. 全国アクセント辞典 (in Japanese) (31sted.). Chiyoda, Tokyo: Tokyodo Shuppan. p.599. ISBN978-4-490-10023-5.
↑NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, ed. (20 June 2025) [25 May 2016]. NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典 (in Japanese) (15thed.). Shibuya, Tokyo: NHK Publishing. p.1043. ISBN978-4-14-011345-5.
↑"武蔵野台地の立体地形模型"[Exhibit explanation "Three-dimensional topographic model of Musashino Plateau" (Earth Room)]. Tamarokuto Science Center (in Japanese). 5 November 2020. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
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