Special wards are a special form of municipalities in Japan under the 1947 Local Autonomy Law. They are city-level wards: primary subdivisions of a prefecture with municipal autonomy largely comparable to other forms of municipalities.

Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital city of Japan and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of over 14 million residents as of 2023. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and parts of six neighbouring prefectures, is the most-populous metropolitan area in the world, with 40.8 million residents as of 2023.