Origins The area of present-day Toyota City has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and archaeologists have found a continuous record of artifacts from the
Japanese paleolithic period onwards. In early proto-historic times, the area was under the control of the
Mononobe clan, who built numerous
kofun burial mounds. The local place name "
Koromo" is mentioned in the
Kojiki and other early Japanese documents.
Edo period During the
Edo period, parts of the area of the current city were under the control of
Koromo Domain, a
feudal han under the
Tokugawa shogunate; however, most of the area of the current city was
tenryō territory controlled directly by the government in
Edo and administered through
hatamoto class appointed administrators. The village of "Matsudaira", from which
Tokugawa Ieyasu took his clan name, was located within what is now the city of Toyota.
Meiji period After the
Meiji restoration, the area was organized into the towns of Asuke and Koromo and numerous villages under
Higashikamo District and
Nishikamo District with the establishment of the modern municipalities system. The area was a major producer of
silk and prospered from the
Meiji period through the
Taishō periods. As the demand for raw silk declined in Japan and abroad, Koromo entered a period of gradual decline after 1930. The decline encouraged
Kiichiro Toyoda, cousin of
Eiji Toyoda, to look for alternatives to the family's automatic
loom manufacturing business. The search led to the founding of what became the
Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyota built the first manufacturing facility, known as
Toyota Honsha plant in November 1938, breaking ground in December 1935.
Modern history On March 1, 1951, Koromo gained city status, and absorbed the village of Takahashi from Nishikamo District on September 30, 1956. Due to the fame and economic importance of its major employer, the city of changed its name to Toyota on January 1, 1959. Toyota became a sister city with
Detroit,
Michigan,
United States in 1960. It continued to expand by annexing the towns of Kamigo (Hekikai District) on March 1, 1964, and Takaoka (Hekikai District) on September 1, 1965, and Sanage (Nishikamo District) on April 1, 1967, as well as the village of Matsudaira (Higashikamo District) on April 1, 1970. In 1979 the
Nagoya Railroad (Meitetsu) opened the Toyota New Line (now
Toyota Line), and in 1988, the
Aichi Loop Line was opened, thus considerably improving access to the city via rail transport. Toyota became a
Core City in 1998, with increased local autonomy. On March 25, 2005,
Expo 2005 opened with its main site in
Nagakute and additional activity in
Seto and Toyota. The Expo continued until September 25, 2005. On April 1, 2005, Toyota absorbed the town of
Fujioka, and the village of
Obara (both from
Nishikamo District), the towns of
Asuke,
Asahi and
Inabu, and the village of
Shimoyama (all from
Higashikamo District) to create the new and expanded city of Toyota. Mitsuru Obe and Eric Pfanner of
The Wall Street Journal stated that by 2015 Toyota was recovering from an economic depression "so deep that some were
comparing it to Detroit." File:Sanage-jinja Torii.jpg|Sanage shinto shrine File:Chuma no Ohinasan 2012.jpg|Asuke area (
Groups of Traditional Buildings) File:Toyota museum 101.JPG|Koromo Castle File:Toyota Sangokan exterior 2017-06 (1).jpg|City center of Toyota ==Government==