Tokyo is the de facto capital of Japan, where the seat of the Government of Japan and home of the Emperor are located. While this is generally accepted, the capital de jure is disputed by some people. Some supporters of the argument that Tokyo is the de jure capital city of Japan cite the 1868 establishment of Tokyo prefecture as the date that it became the capital. Others state that it occurred when Edo Castle became Tokyo Castle that same year, and still others say that it occurred when Tokyo Castle became the Imperial Castle (now the Kōkyo) in 1869. Historically speaking, while there was an imperial edict transferring the capital to Heian-kyō, such a basis has never been provided for the transfer from Kyoto to Tokyo. So, today, there are some people who argue that since the transfer to Heiankyo was valid, Kyoto is still the capital of Japan, while some say that Tokyo and Kyoto are simultaneously capitals of Japan.

After World War II, the new Constitution of Japan transferred the state's sovereignty from the Emperor to the people, as represented by the Diet of Japan. A broad consensus arose that the site of the Diet denoted the capital of Japan. This is the most concrete basis for legally recognizing Tokyo as the sole capital of Japan, since the Emperor has no governing power and all other state institutions are based in Tokyo. It falls short of an explicit statement that Tokyo is the capital.

Japan ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.

Burton Holmes (1870–1958) was an American traveler, photographer and filmmaker, who coined the term "travelogue".

Travel stories, slide shows, and motion pictures were all in existence before Holmes began his career, as was the profession of travel lecturer; but Holmes was the first person to put all of these elements together into documentary travel lectures.^{[citation needed]}

Burton Holmes was born into a middle-class Chicago family, the son of a banker. His interest in travel was sparked at the age of nine when his grandmother took him to hear a then-famous travel lecturer, John L. Stoddard (whom Holmes was to meet on a subsequent trip abroad). In 1890, Holmes accompanied his grandmother on a trip to Europe and when he returned showed slides of his trip at the Chicago Camera Club, of which he was a member. Holmes wrote of this event: "To take the edge off the silence, to keep the show moving, I wrote an account of my journey and read it, as the stereopticon man changed slides."

Despite the success of this event, which grossed $350 for the club, it wasn't until several years later that Holmes decided to set himself up as a travel lecturer. In 1893, after sending out 2000 invitations to a select group of Chicagoans, Holmes gave two sold-out talks about a recent trip to Japan.