Detached houses by the Arakawa embankment, with a station that once appeared in Ozu's "Tokyo Story"
The closest neighborhoods in the same city.
Yahiro Station sits right beside the embankment of the Arakawa River; because it was built on the embankment when it opened, the station was named Arakawa Station. On the other side of the embankment is the Arakawa Drainage Channel, about 500 meters wide, and across it is already Katsushika City.
Detached houses make up about 37% of the neighborhood, nearly twice the rate for Sumida City as a whole. Households made up only of relatives living together account for about 53%, while single-person households account for about 45%—the high and low exactly reversed compared with Sumida City as a whole.
Owner-occupied homes make up about half, more than privately rented housing. Those aged 65 and over make up about 27%, also higher than Sumida City.
Public transit ranks 224th among 395 neighborhoods in Tokyo, the strongest category for this neighborhood. The station has the fewest boardings and alightings of any stop on the Keisei Oshiage Line, at about 16,000 people a day, but the number has been increasing since the 2000s.
Yahiro 5-chome has Yahiro Park. Yahiro 4-chome also has Yahiro Koshindo, which preserves a Koshin statue bearing an inscription dated Genroku 2.
Based on the largest assumed scale of Arakawa flooding, most of Yahiro 4- to 6-chome is projected to flood 3 to 5 meters deep, and the whole neighborhood would take more than 2 weeks for the water to recede. The area around the station and along the embankment is also designated a zone requiring early evacuation.
For the comprehensive earthquake risk rating (2022, on a five-level scale), Yahiro 4-chome is at the highest level, 5, Yahiro 5- and 6-chome are at level 4, and Higashi-Sumida 2-chome is at level 2. For Yahiro 4-chome blocks 1–47 and 5-chome, subsidies are available in fiscal years 2026 through 2030 for rebuilding with fireproof construction or for demolishing wooden houses.
Daily shopping ranks 349th, and healthcare ranks 354th, both toward the bottom. From our street photos, buildings rank second from the bottom, the weakest category for this neighborhood; sidewalks rank 346th, also toward the bottom.
Starting in 1913, the government spent 17 years digging out the Arakawa Drainage Channel. In 1923, the station opened under the name Arakawa Station. In 1953, Ozu Yasujiro's Tokyo Story was filmed at this station, though it appeared in the opening scenes as Horikiri Station.
In 1965, 8 former districts of Terashima-cho, Sumida-cho, and Azuma-cho merged to form Yahiro, taking the auspicious meaning of the character for "eight" (hachi) fanning out wider toward its end. In 1991, an oil tanker struck the old Arakawa bridge, halting the Oshiage Line for several days; the old bridge was lower than the embankments on both banks, so the raised embankment effectively had a gap at the bridge. The following year it was decided to rebuild the bridge and elevate it, the station was renamed Yahiro in 1994, and the new station opened in 2001.
Compared with the 395 Tokyo neighborhoods in this guide (scores 0–10)
Hospitals with inpatient beds (2020 data), public elementary and junior high schools whose catchment covers this area, high schools and universities within 1 km, stations, parks of 1 ha or more, and large shopping malls and department stores. Many Tokyo junior high students attend private schools, so junior high catchments are only a guide.
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How to read it: yellow = poor, blue = good; grey = not enough data
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