Chuo-dori Street, Akihabara, Tokyo

Akihabara grew up around the electronics stalls that filled the streets near Akihabara Station after World War II, when vendors sold radio parts and surplus goods to a city rebuilding from scratch. The neighborhood's name comes from Akiba, a fire-prevention shrine built here in the 1870s after a blaze leveled the area. By the 1980s and '90s, Akihabara had shifted from hardware to home computers and then to anime, manga, and gaming culture, earning the nickname Akihabara Electric Town. Chuo-dori, the main street running through the district, closes to vehicle traffic on weekend afternoons, turning the roadway over to pedestrians beneath its dense layer of neon signage. The elevated tracks crossing above the street carry JR Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku Line trains through Akihabara Station, one of the busiest stops on Tokyo's rail network.