Posted on June 27, 2026
Why Are Foreign Visitors Drawn to Tsukiji?
A Place Where They Encounter Everyday Japanese Culture
By Tato Takahama
Pacific Research Institute
Many foreign visitors to Tokyo travel to famous destinations such as the Imperial Palace, Asakusa, Tokyo Tower, and Shibuya.
Yet one place has continued to attract international visitors for many years:
Tsukiji.
Tsukiji is not simply a seafood market. It is a place where Japanese food culture, craftsmanship, and human interaction have developed over generations.
The reason visitors are fascinated by Tsukiji is simple.
They do not find a “displayed Japan” there.
They find a Japan that is still living.
At Tsukiji’s outer market, workers begin their day early in the morning. Their ability to judge the quality of tuna, their knife skills, and their conversations with customers all reflect a deep tradition of Japanese craftsmanship.
At shops such as Maguroya Kurogin Tsukiji, visitors can experience fresh tuna directly, choosing cuts such as lean tuna, medium fatty tuna, and fatty tuna while seeing how Japanese food culture connects from the market to the table.
https://www.facebook.com/maguroyakurogintsukiji
For foreign visitors, this is not merely a meal.
It is a cultural experience.
On October 11, 2018, the historic Tsukiji wholesale market officially relocated its central market functions to Toyosu.
Today, Toyosu Market handles tuna auctions and wholesale operations and has developed into one of the world’s major seafood markets. Its visitor facilities have also become a new gateway for people to experience Tokyo’s modern market culture.
Yet what is remarkable is that foreign visitors continue to come to Tsukiji even after the relocation.
What they seek is not only the auction itself.
They are attracted by the outer market—the small shops, conversations between merchants and customers, the craftsmanship, and the atmosphere of a neighborhood shaped by food culture.
If Toyosu represents Tokyo’s modern market of today and tomorrow, Tsukiji represents the memory and everyday life that grew around the market over generations.
In many Western countries, museums, historic buildings, and monuments often serve as gateways to culture.
In Japan, however, food, markets, small shops, and the work of craftsmen themselves can become cultural experiences.
The attraction of Tsukiji is not that it feels like a perfectly designed tourist attraction.
It is the narrow streets, the brief conversations with shopkeepers, the process of choosing seafood, and the morning rhythm of the market.
These ordinary scenes feel extraordinary to visitors from abroad.
For decades, Japan’s tourism strategy has focused on the “Golden Route” connecting Tokyo and Kyoto.
But the next era of tourism requires more than adding famous destinations.
Japan’s everyday communities themselves can become gateways for the world to discover the country.
The cultural life of schools in Okayama, the lifestyle of the Seto Inland Sea region around Kagawa, the modern market culture of Toyosu, and the living streets of Tsukiji all tell different stories about Japan.
Tsukiji represents this idea.
Foreign visitors are not drawn to Tsukiji because it shows a special Japan.
They are drawn there because it shows the Japan people actually live in.
Note: This article explores how everyday Japanese communities, rather than only famous landmarks, can become gateways for global visitors to understand Japan.
Original Japanese Text: なぜ外国人は築地に惹かれるのか ― 観光地ではなく、日本の日常文化に出会う場所