Jimbōchō Book Town is one of the world’s oldest surviving and largest-scale book towns, perhaps second only to Kaifeng, China. There are said to be at least 400 bookstores in the district, where one-third of secondhand books in all of Tokyo can be found. The book town can trace its roots to the early 1880’s when several law schools were founded in the Kanda-Jinbōchō area. This was followed by the opening of several bookstores that served the needs of the students, many of whom sold off their textbooks by the end of the semester. Freshmen would…
