Tokyo Tower: Tickets, Height, Views and Is It Worth It

Tokyo Tower is 333 meters tall, nine meters more than the Eiffel Tower, and it was built that way on purpose. When it opened in December 1958 it was the tallest freestanding tower in the world, put up by a country that thirteen years earlier had been carpet-bombed into ruins. A third of the steel came from American tanks scrapped after the Korean War.

The tower stands in Shiba Park in Minato, 15 minutes from Tokyo Station. The Main Deck at 150 meters costs ¥1,200 at the counter or ¥1,500 online, and the Top Deck Tour at 250 meters costs ¥3,300 booked ahead. It is open until 23:00, later than any other observation deck in the city.

Tokyo Tower was the tallest artificial structure in Japan until 2010

Why was Tokyo Tower built?

Japan needed a single transmission tower. By the mid-1950s, broadcasters across the Tokyo region were each putting up their own antennas across the city, and the government wanted one structure tall enough to serve the whole Kanto region.

Hisakichi Maeda, the newspaper businessman behind the project, wanted more than a mast. He wanted the tallest tower in the world, and he wanted it to say something about a country that had spent the previous decade in reconstruction.

Tachu Naito, the engineer who designed it, had spent his career on earthquake-resistant structures and had studied the Eiffel Tower closely. His version is nine meters taller and uses roughly 4,000 tons of steel, against the Eiffel Tower's 7,300, because 70 years of metallurgy had happened in between.

Building it

Construction ran from June 1957 to completion on December 23, 1958, about 18 months, with around 400 workers. Rivets were driven by hand, and the steel was hauled up by winch and set by men working without modern fall protection. One worker died during construction.

The scrap tank story is real. With Japanese steel production still recovering, around a third of the material came from US military vehicles damaged in Korea and sold for scrap.

It cost about ¥2.8 billion, and it opened to a country that had just started calling itself an economic miracle.

How tall is Tokyo Tower, and why is it orange?

View of Tokyo tower and pink cherry blossom(sakura)

333 meters, with a main deck at 150 and a top deck at 250. It held the title of world's tallest freestanding tower until 1967 and remained Japan's tallest structure until Tokyo Skytree passed it in 2010.

The color is international orange and white, in bands, because Japanese aviation law at the time required tall structures to be painted that way for visibility. It takes about a year to repaint and is done roughly every five years, by hand, with around 28,000 liters of paint.

At night it changes character. The standard winter lighting uses warm orange lamps, the summer version is cooler and whiter, and special colors mark events and causes throughout the year.

Tokyo Tower tickets and opening hours

People silhouette inside Observation Deck. Tokyo, Japan

There are three ways up, and the pricing has a quirk worth knowing.

Main Deck, 150 meters

• Adults ¥1,200 at the counter, ¥1,500 online with a specified date and time

• High school students ¥900 counter, ¥1,200 online

• Elementary and junior high ¥600 counter, ¥900 online

• Ages 4 and up ¥300 counter, ¥600 online

• Open 9:00 to 23:00, last admission 22:30

The online ticket costs more because it guarantees entry at a set time and skips the queue. On a quiet weekday, buy at the counter and save the difference.

Top Deck Tour, 250 meters

• Adults ¥3,300 online, ¥3,500 at the counter

• High school ¥3,100 online, elementary and junior high ¥2,100, ages 4 and up ¥1,500

• Open 9:00 to 22:45, last tour 22:15

The Top Deck runs as a guided tour with a fixed time slot, a welcome drink and an audio guide in several languages. Book ahead, since slots sell out on weekends and in the hour around sunset.

Tokyo Diamond Tour adds a lounge with a view and runs hourly from 12:00 to 18:00, at ¥7,000 for adults.

Getting to Tokyo Tower

Five stations serve it, none of them called Tokyo Tower.

• Akabanebashi on the Toei Oedo Line, 5 minutes on foot from the Akabanebashi exit, which is the closest

• Kamiyacho on the Hibiya Line, 7 minutes

• Onarimon and Shibakoen on the Toei Mita Line, 6 to 10 minutes

• Daimon and Hamamatsucho for JR and the Tokyo Monorail, 15 minutes

The walk from Hamamatsucho is the most pleasant, since it takes you through Shiba Park past Zojo-ji temple, which is the best free view of the tower in the city.

What else is at Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Tower mascots, Noppon Brothers

Foot Town, the four-story building at the base, holds shops, restaurants and an esports and digital entertainment park called RED° Tokyo Tower spread over several floors. It replaced the old aquarium, which closed in 2018.

The Noppon brothers, two pink mascots with pointed heads modeled on the tower, appear for events and are photographed more than anyone expects.

There is also an external staircase of 600 steps from the ground to the Main Deck, open in daylight hours at weekends and on some weekdays. Climbing it is free with a Main Deck ticket, takes around 15 minutes, and earns you a certificate.

Tokyo Tower or Tokyo Skytree?

Tokyo Tower Night Aerial View

The honest answer is that they are different products.

Tokyo Skytree is 634 meters, more than twice the height, with decks at 350 and 450 meters and a much larger shopping complex at the base. It is newer, higher and has better facilities, and on a clear day the view reaches further.

Tokyo Tower is shorter, cheaper, more central and more photogenic. Its own view includes the dense low-rise core of the city rather than looking down on it from above the clouds, and being at 150 meters puts you close enough to see streets and buildings as objects rather than a map.

The deciding factor for most visitors is what they want in the photograph. Skytree gives you the better view, Tokyo Tower gives you the better landmark, and you cannot see Tokyo Tower from the top of Tokyo Tower.

If you would rather do both, a full comparison of the Skytree experience covers the practical differences, and Skytree panoramic view tickets save queuing on busy days.

Can you see Mount Fuji from Tokyo Tower?

Yes, on clear days, mostly in winter. Fuji sits about 100 km southwest, and the odds are best on cold, dry mornings from December to February. Summer haze hides it for weeks at a time.

The other towers and decks

Tokyo has more high viewpoints than any city needs, and the choice is wider than these two. Shibuya Sky is an open-air rooftop at 229 meters, which is a different experience again, and the free deck at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building costs nothing at all. A comparison of Shibuya Sky and Skytree is worth reading if you are only doing one paid deck on the trip.

What to see near Tokyo Tower

Zojo-ji sits directly below the tower and is free. It was the Tokugawa family temple, holds the graves of six shoguns, and its main gate, the Sangedatsumon, dates from 1622 and survived both the 1923 earthquake and the 1945 firebombing.

Shiba Park around it is one of Japan's oldest public parks, opened in 1873, and contains a kofun burial mound from the fifth century that almost nobody notices.

Roppongi and its museums are a 15-minute walk north, Hamarikyu Gardens is 20 minutes east toward the bay, and the Atago Shrine stone staircase, 86 steps known as the Slope of Success, is five minutes away and gives you another good tower view.

How much does a Tokyo Tower visit cost?

• Main Deck only: ¥1,200 to ¥1,500 per adult

• Main and Top Deck: ¥3,300 to ¥3,500 per adult

• Diamond Tour with lounge: ¥7,000

• Climbing the outside stairs: free with a Main Deck ticket

• Looking at it from Zojo-ji: free

A family of four doing the Main Deck comes to roughly ¥3,600 at counter prices. Adding Foot Town's entertainment park, food and a souvenir doubles it.

Best time to visit Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Tower view at night

Sunset is the obvious answer and the busiest slot. Arriving 45 minutes before sunset gets you the city in daylight, the transition, and the lights coming on, which is worth the wait.

For fewer people, go in the last two hours before closing. The tower is open until 23:00, later than Skytree or Shibuya Sky, and after about 21:00 the decks are genuinely quiet.

Cherry blossom season adds Shiba Park and Zojo-ji below, which is the classic blossom-and-tower photograph. Winter is best for long views, and rain is worth avoiding entirely, since the whole point is the horizon.

Is Tokyo Tower worth visiting?

Yes, with the right expectation. This is not the best view in Tokyo, and anyone comparing it purely on height will prefer Skytree.

What it has is character. It is 68 years old, hand-riveted, painted the wrong color by modern standards, and it sits in a park next to a 17th-century temple with skyscrapers behind it. It is the building that appears in Godzilla films, in anime, and on the cover of anything trying to signal Tokyo.

Budget 60 to 90 minutes for the Main Deck, or two hours with the Top Deck Tour. It fits easily into a half day with Zojo-ji, Roppongi and the bay, which is roughly how a slower-paced Tokyo trip sequences the Minato side of the city.

Go at night if you can only go once, and walk down through Shiba Park afterward for the view from below, which costs nothing and is the one most people remember.