Tokyo
Tokyo Skytree
634 metres, two decks, and a ticket that doubles if you buy the wrong one. Which deck is worth paying for, where to photograph the tower from the ground, and the hour that actually has a view.
Tokyo Skytree is 634 metres tall, which makes it the tallest tower in the world and roughly twice the height of Tokyo Tower, three kilometres to the south-west. It opened in May 2012 as a broadcast mast; the observation decks are a side business, and it shows in how the ticketing works.
Two things are worth knowing before you buy anything. The view from the top is enormous rather than beautiful — Tokyo has no single landmark to anchor a photograph from 450 metres. And the tower itself is the better subject, from the ground, for free.
At a glance
- Height
- 634 m. Tembo Deck at 350 m, Tembo Galleria at 450 m
- Tickets
- Tembo Deck from ¥1,800 adult, ¥900 child (6–14). Both decks from ¥3,000 / ¥1,500 — official prices, checked November 2026
- Buying on site
- Adds ¥500 per ticket at the 4th-floor counter or machines. Buy online
- Stations
- Tokyo Skytree (Tobu) is at the foot; Oshiage (Asakusa, Hanzomon, Keisei) is one level below the mall
- Best hour
- The 40 minutes after sunset, when the city lights come on and the sky still has colour
Pay for the lower deck, not the upper one
The Tembo Deck at 350 metres is the one to buy. It is a wide, triple-height ring with glass to the floor, and at that height you can still see streets, trains and roofs — the things that make Tokyo legible.
The Tembo Galleria at 450 metres is a sloping spiral corridor with a narrower outlook. It is higher, and that is the whole of the difference. At 450 metres the city has flattened into an undifferentiated grey field running to the horizon in every direction. Unless the day is exceptionally clear and you want Fuji on the skyline, the extra ¥1,200 buys altitude rather than a view.
If you are already upstairs and change your mind, the Galleria can be bought from machines inside the Tembo Deck at ¥1,400 for adults and ¥700 for children, which is less than the combined ticket's premium. Going up undecided is the cheaper mistake.
The best photograph is from the canal
Everyone photographs the tower from the mall at its foot, where you cannot fit it in the frame and the light is always wrong. Walk west along the canal instead. It runs dead straight away from the base, which means the tower stands at the end of a corridor of water, and the walkways on both banks give you a clean foreground at any hour.
Late morning puts the sun behind you. After dark, the canal goes black and the tower doubles in it.
It changes colour, and the colour means something
The tower runs two standard lighting schemes on alternate nights: Iki, a pale blue-green, and Miyabi, a warm purple. Special colours appear for events, seasons and anniversaries, and they are announced on the tower's own site a few days ahead.
This matters if you have one evening and a colour in mind. The pale green and the purple photograph very differently against a blue-hour sky, and you cannot tell which you will get by turning up.
Getting there, and when not to
Oshiage is the station to use: it is on the Asakusa, Hanzomon and Keisei lines, which means you can reach it directly from Asakusa in three minutes, from Shibuya without changing, and from Narita on the Keisei line. Tokyo Skytree station on the Tobu line is marginally closer to the entrance but connects to less.
Skip the tower entirely on a hazy summer afternoon. Between June and September the view from 350 metres is frequently a white wall, and the ticket is non-refundable for weather. Winter mornings after a cold front are the clearest hours of the year, and the one reliable time Fuji appears on the western horizon.