Chūō is a special ward in the Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. The ward refers to itself in English as Chūō City. It was formed in 1947 as a merger of Kyobashi and Nihonbashi wards following Tokyo City's transformation into Tokyo Metropolis. Chūō-ku, as a combination of Kyobashi and Nihonbashi, is the core of Shitamachi, the original downtown center of Edo-Tokyo.