The estate's story begins in 1632, when the powerful Tokugawa clan of Kii Province received a grant of land that would become one of Edo's most impressive feudal compounds. At 145,381 tsubo -- roughly 48 hectares -- it dwarfed most daimyo residences in the city. The Tokugawa of Kii used it as their secondary Edo residence until 1823, when a fire destroyed their main home in Kojimachi, elevating this estate to primary status. The Meiji Restoration reshuffled everything. Mochitsugu, the last feudal lord, became a Kazoku noble in the new order. When the Emperor arrived in 1873, the estate's feudal chapter closed and its imperial chapter began. Empress Dowager Eisho received a residence on the southwest corner so the Emperor could keep her nearby. The grounds were gradually carved up for crown princes, dowager empresses, and close relatives -- each generation adding palaces and gardens to the compound.

The estate today is a small village of imperial architecture spanning decades of Japanese design. At its northern edge stands the Akasaka Palace, a 72-room reinforced concrete structure built in 1960 by architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, now serving as the residence of Emperor Emeritus Akihito. To the southeast, the Akishino Residence is a patchwork of buildings dating from 1931 to 2000, home to Crown Prince Akishino, his consort Kiko, Princess Kako, and Prince Hisahito. The complex underwent major renovation from 2019 to 2022, during which the family lived in a purpose-built temporary palace just meters away. The East Mikasa Residence, the Mikasa Residence, and the Takamado Residence line the southern edge -- each carrying the name and memory of its imperial branch. The Takamado Residence, finished in 1986, is an Art Deco-influenced building with 19 rooms and a garden pergola, where Princess Hisako and Princess Tsuguko now live after other family members left the imperial household through marriage to commoners.

At the heart of the compound lies a Japanese garden whose name is known to every politician and diplomat in Tokyo. Twice a year, the Emperor hosts a garden party here, inviting around 2,000 guests from politics, diplomacy, and public life. These events are among the few occasions when outsiders set foot on the grounds. Six gates control access: the main gates along Road 414 on the northern side, eastern-facing gates, one opening onto Aoyama Dori, and another toward Gaien-Higashi Dori on the southwest. Each gate marks a boundary between Tokyo's relentless urban energy and the quiet, wooded calm of imperial grounds that have remained essentially private for nearly four centuries. The contrast is the estate's defining quality -- one of the largest green spaces in central Tokyo, yet one that barely exists on any tourist's itinerary.

The estate's northern section once held the original Akasaka Residence, where Togu Palace was built in 1909. After the Second World War, this section was severed from the rest of the estate. The Togu Palace became the Geihinkan -- Japan's State Guest House -- and was reclassified as national property. The remainder stayed in imperial hands. That postwar division created the curious situation that persists today: two distinct worlds share the same neighborhood, separated by a fence and a legal distinction between national and imperial ownership. Visitors touring the Baroque splendor of the State Guest House are standing on what was once the same continuous estate, yet they cannot walk a few hundred meters south into the grounds where the Imperial Family still lives. The split reflects a broader postwar reality -- the emperor was stripped of political power but kept his home.