The picture is simpler than it first appears. The Tokyo Metro and the Toei Subway share the work underground, while a yellow-green JR loop, the Yamanote Line, circles the center of the city and ties the big stations together.
How is the Tokyo rail network laid out?
The network is built in layers: two subway systems, the JR East lines, and private railways such as Keikyu that carry passengers out toward the airports. On a map they overlap in the middle of the city, and the stations where they meet are the places where you change from one color to another.
It helps to sort every line you see into one of those layers before choosing a route. A line belonging to the Metro, to Toei or to JR East may look similar on a diagram, but each has its own operator, and that matters when you read station signs and plan transfers.
The two subway systems
The Tokyo subway consists of two major systems, the Tokyo Metro and the Toei Subway. Between them they carry a combined average of over eight million passengers a day, which is why the platforms at the main interchange stations always feel like a river in motion.
The Metro is the larger of the two. Toei is smaller, with fewer lines, but its stations sit throughout the same central districts, so a trip across town often uses both.
| Operator | Lines | Stations | Route length (miles) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo Metro | 9 | 180 | 121.2 |
| Toei Subway | 4 | 106 | 67.7 |
JR East and the private railways
Above the subway sits JR East, which operates 23 lines within the Greater Tokyo area. Its trains are the ones you see on the Yamanote loop and on the lines that fan out into the suburbs. Private operators complete the picture, among them Keikyu, whose trains run from Shinagawa Station to Haneda Airport.
JR East is also the majority shareholder in the Tokyo Monorail, which links central Tokyo with Haneda Airport. On a map the monorail appears as one more thread, but it belongs to the same family of lines that serves the airport side of the city.
Through services and the biggest stations
One feature of the map surprises first-time riders: through services. On all lines except the Tokyo Metro Ginza and Marunouchi Lines and the Toei Oedo Line, trains continue past the end of one operator’s tracks and onto another’s. You can board a train marked with one line name and find it carrying on under a different railway’s banner.
The stations themselves are on a scale of their own. Shinjuku Station is the busiest train station in the world by passenger throughput. Tokyo Station, the terminal for so many long-distance journeys, had an average of 403,831 passengers a day in 2023. Expect both to feel like small cities with their own signs, corridors and exits.
The oldest piece of the system is the Ginza Line, Asia’s oldest subway line, which first opened in 1927. It is a reminder that this underground map has been growing for a very long time, line by line, rather than being drawn in a single stroke.
What is the Yamanote Line?
The Yamanote Line is a railway loop in Tokyo, operated by JR East, that encircles the center of the city and connects Shinagawa, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Ueno and Tokyo. If the subway map is a tangle, the loop is its spine, and many travelers learn it first because the logic is so plain: stay on and you come back to where you started.
Every train on the line is a local that stops at every station, so there is no express to catch or miss. The color is the clue on platforms and diagrams: the Yamanote uses JNR Yellow Green No.6, known in Japanese as Japanese bush warbler green, on its trains, its station signs and its diagrams.
Which way does the loop run?
The two directions have their own names. Trains running clockwise are called sotomawari, the outer circle, and those running counter-clockwise are called uchi-mawari, the inner circle. On the platform, you choose by the next stations on the sign rather than by the word clockwise.
Going sotomawari, a train leaves Shinagawa for Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Ueno and Tokyo, then returns to Shinagawa. Going uchi-mawari, it leaves Shinagawa for Tokyo, Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku and Shibuya before coming back to Shinagawa. The two sequences are mirror images, so the major stations appear on both.
A practical way to think about it: pick the major station you want to reach, find it in the list for each direction, and take whichever reads as the way you are facing. Because the line is a circle, either direction gets you there eventually.
Hours, frequency and the full circuit
The Yamanote runs through most of the day and well into the night, with trains following each other closely at busy periods and a little more loosely at others. A complete lap takes a bit over an hour, which makes the loop a way of seeing several districts from the window without ever changing trains.
| Detail | Yamanote Line |
|---|---|
| Service hours | 04:26 to 01:04 the next day |
| Interval at peak periods | As short as 2 minutes |
| Interval at other times | 4 minutes |
| Full loop | 59 to 65 minutes |
| Stations served | 30 |
The newest station on the loop
The loop is not frozen in time. Takanawa Gateway Station opened on 14 March 2020, between Shinagawa and Tamachi stations. If you are reading an older map or guidebook, it may show the gap without a stop between those two, so check the current diagram on the platform. Shinagawa, next to the new station, is also where Keikyu trains for Haneda Airport begin, so a stretch of the loop can be the first or last leg of an airport journey.
Which lines go where?
The lines divide into the Yamanote loop for the big hubs, the Metro and Toei subway lines for crossing the center, and a handful of airport routes that tie Tokyo to Haneda and Narita. Each answers a different kind of question: how to circle the city, how to cut across it, and how to leave it.
The subway lines by name
Among the Tokyo Metro lines are the Ginza, the Marunouchi, the Hibiya and the Chiyoda. The Toei side includes the Asakusa Line and the Oedo Line. These names appear on the colored signs inside stations, and each line keeps its own color and letter on the map, so you follow the symbol rather than memorize the name.
The Ginza and Marunouchi Lines on the Metro, and the Oedo Line on Toei, are the three that do not run through services onto other railways. Every other line can hand its trains over to a partner operator, which is why a single train sometimes carries a destination from a different company.
Lines to Haneda Airport
Three routes reach Haneda Airport, also called Tokyo International Airport. Keikyu Corporation operates trains from Shinagawa Station to the airport. The Toei Asakusa Line has through service to Haneda via the Keikyu Airport Line. And the Tokyo Monorail, in which JR East is the majority shareholder, connects central Tokyo to the airport.
Which one suits you depends on where you start. From the Yamanote, Shinagawa is the natural place to meet Keikyu. From the subway side, the Asakusa Line is the one to look for on the Toei map.
Lines to Narita Airport
For Narita Airport, the Toei Asakusa Line again appears on the map, this time with through service via the Keisei Oshiage Line and other lines. That through running is why you can see Asakusa Line trains with airport destinations on the front, even though the tracks beyond the city belong to other companies.
Behind the scenes, the Narita-Haneda service in Greater Tokyo integrates track from six separate and independent rail operators. For a traveler this means the airport links are stitched together from several railways, and the signs on the platform, not the company name, tell you which train is headed where.
Good to know before you go
Tokyo’s railways tend to shut down at around midnight, with stations closing around 1 a.m., so a late dinner needs an eye on the clock. When the trains stop, most taxi companies raise their fares by 20% between 22:00 and 5:00. Plan your last ride before then, and keep the loop’s late service hours in mind if your evening ends near one of its stations.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Tokyo subway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway), checked October 11, 2026
- Wikipedia, Transport in Greater Tokyo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo), checked October 11, 2026
- Wikipedia, Yamanote Line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamanote_Line), checked October 11, 2026