Toyota, Aichi

Lore & Background

The area of present-day Toyota has been inhabited since prehistoric times, with artifacts from the Japanese paleolithic period. In early proto-historic times, the Mononobe clan controlled the area and built numerous kofun burial mounds. The place name 'Koromo' is mentioned in the Kojiki and other early Japanese documents. During the Edo period, parts of the area were under the control of Koromo Domain, a feudal han under the Tokugawa shogunate, while most was tenryō territory administered by hatamoto-class officials. The village of Matsudaira, from which Tokugawa Ieyasu took his clan name, lies within modern Toyota. After the Meiji restoration, the area was organized into the towns of Asuke and Koromo and numerous villages. It prospered as a major silk producer from the Meiji through Taishō periods, but declined after 1930 as raw silk demand fell. This decline prompted Kiichiro Toyoda, cousin of Eiji Toyoda, to seek alternatives to the family’s automatic loom business, leading to the founding of the Toyota Motor Corporation. The first manufacturing facility, the Toyota Honsha plant, broke ground in December 1935 and opened in November 1938. Koromo gained city status in 1951, and due to the economic importance of its major employer, renamed itself Toyota in 1959. The city became a sister city with Detroit in 1960 and a Core City in 1998. It expanded by annexing surrounding towns and villages through 2005, including Asuke, Fujioka, and Obara. The city’s economy is dominated by the headquarters of Toyota Motor Corporation, located in a 14-story building featuring the Toyopet logo and the words "Toyota Motor". The Toyota Technical Center and the original Honsha plant are also within the city. Agriculture includes peaches and Pyrus pyrifolia, while forestry involves Cryptomeria and Chamaecyparis obtusa.

Reader's Guide

The area of present-day Toyota has been inhabited since the Japanese paleolithic period, with continuous archaeological evidence. In proto-historic times, the Mononobe clan controlled the region and built numerous kofun burial mounds. The local place name "Koromo" appears in the Kojiki and other early documents. During the Edo period, part of the area was controlled by Koromo Domain, a feudal han under the Tokugawa shogunate, while most was tenryō territory administered directly by the government in Edo through hatamoto-class officials. The village of Matsudaira, from which Tokugawa Ieyasu took his clan name, lies within modern Toyota. After the Meiji restoration, the area was organized into the towns of Asuke and Koromo and surrounding villages. It prospered as a major silk producer through the Meiji and Taishō periods, but declined after 1930 as raw silk demand fell. This decline prompted Kiichiro Toyoda to seek alternatives to the family's automatic loom business, leading to the founding of the Toyota Motor Corporation. The first manufacturing facility, the Toyota Honsha plant, broke ground in December 1935 and opened in November 1938. The city of Koromo gained city status in 1951, and due to the economic importance of its major employer, renamed itself Toyota in 1959. It became a sister city with Detroit in 1960. Toyota expanded by annexing surrounding towns and villages through 2005. The city hosts the main headquarters of Toyota Motor Corporation in a 14-story building, along with the Toyota Technical Center and the original Honsha plant. Its economy also includes agriculture, notably peaches and pears, and forestry with Cryptomeria and Chamaecyparis obtusa. By 2015, the city was recovering from an economic depression so deep that some compared it to Detroit.

Did You Know?

• The village of Matsudaira, from which Tokugawa Ieyasu took his clan name, lies within modern Toyota.
• Toyota is the largest city in Aichi Prefecture by area.
• Toyota is twinned with Detroit, Michigan, and Derbyshire, England.

The Long Road to a Third Japanese Host City

The joint proposal from Aichi Prefecture and its capital Nagoya nearly collapsed before it ever reached the Olympic Council of Asia's desk. Money was the sticking point: the two interested parties could not agree on financial terms, and the bid was on the verge of never materialising. Those disagreements were ironed out across 2015 and 2016, and the OCA formally welcomed the joint bid at its annual general assembly in Da Nang, Vietnam, on 25 September 2016. The selection was pulled forward from the originally planned 2018 date because the region's sporting calendar was already saturated—two Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and Beijing, two FIFA World Cups in Russia and Qatar, and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo all landed between 2018 and 2022. Nagoya will become only the third Japanese city to stage the Asian Games, after Tokyo in 1958 and Hiroshima in 1994. The edition also coincides with the 75th anniversary of the first Asian Games in New Delhi, India, and restores the traditional four-year rhythm that the 2022-to-2023 postponement had disrupted.

A Budget That Kept Growing

The money trail for Aichi–Nagoya 2026 tells a story of escalating pressure. The Aichi Prefecture government handed Nagoya an initial estimate of roughly ¥85 billion, or about $560 million, to cover the cost of staging the Games. Under the original funding plan, 30 percent of that sum was expected to be generated through sponsorships and other commercial revenue, while the remaining 70 percent would be divided on a 70-to-30 basis between the city and the prefecture. By February 2023, however, the figure had swelled to ¥140.5 billion—approximately $927 million—reflecting the kind of cost inflation that plagues large-scale multi-sport events. The surge in construction material prices, a factor that also derailed the original plan for a single purpose-built athletes village, likely contributed to the upward revision. The layered split of responsibility between municipal and prefectural governments, combined with a meaningful dependence on private-sector income, means both levels of government must keep the budget in check well into the run-up to the September 2026 opening.

Housing Thousands of Athletes in a Typhoon Season

Finding a place to house the expected 4,000-to-5,000-plus athletes became one of the Games' most creative logistical puzzles. The organising committee had originally earmarked the former Nagoya Racecourse site in Minato-ku for a dedicated athletes village, but the soaring price of building materials made that option untenable. The solution was to scatter accommodation across the prefecture. The Costa Serena cruise ship, moored at Kinjo Pier, would take in roughly 4,000 to 5,000 competitors. An additional 2,000 would stay in temporary wooden structures styled like shipping containers at the Port of Nagoya Garden Wharf—buildings designed to double as disaster-response units and tourist lodging once the competition ends. The rest would be dispersed among hotels in the prefecture and outlying cities. Because the September-to-October window sits near the tail of the Pacific typhoon season, organisers prepared multiple evacuation contingencies for the cruise ship in the event of a tsunami, typhoon, or other natural disaster.

A Broadened Programme and a Two-Flame Torch Relay

The 2026 edition is expected to field 469 medal events across 43 sports, twelve fewer than Hangzhou 2022. Several disciplines are making their Asian Games debut—freestyle BMX, mixed martial arts, padel, surfing, teqball, and virtual taekwondo—while five regionally nominated sports (wushu, sepak takraw, kabaddi, kurash, jujitsu) and three carryovers from the 2024 Paris Olympics (breaking, skateboarding, surfing) round out the slate. Cricket, long championed by the Asian Cricket Council, was approved on 28 April and will double as the Asian qualifier for the 2028 Summer Olympics. The opening ceremony, set for 19 September at Paloma Mizuho Stadium, is being produced by Chinese firm Dafeng Industry under the creative direction of Japanese filmmaker Yukihiko Tsutsumi. The torch relay, involving 1,000 bearers across 40 municipalities and all 16 wards of Nagoya, was ignited at two separate sites—Tokyo's legacy cauldron and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park—before the flames were merged with a concave mirror and the relay launched from Nagoya Castle.