How does the structure work in this sentence

I found a article on nhk news web easy: Link

and a translation on reddit: Link

東京の築地場外市場で火事 けがをした人はいなかった
Fire At Tsukiji Outer Market, No One Injured

Please explain to me this part:

東京の築地場外市場で火事 けがをした人はいなかった
東京の築地 means Tokio’s Tsukiji.

There are 6 Kanjis next to each other. How does this work?

In English, you don’t need to say “the open market at Tsukiji”, you can just say “Tsukiji open market”.
For the same reason, in Japanese, you don’t need to say 「築地の場外市場」, you can just say 「築地場外市場」.
This actually happens a lot, where they’ll just string a whole bunch of kanji together, and it can be hard to know where the word breaks are.

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場外 means outside (Noun, No-adjective)

would’t the whole thing be like 「東京の築地の場外の市場」 then?

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But I thought 東京の大学 means that 大学 belongs to 東京.
Tokio’s University or the University of Tokyo.


Ah I think I got it.
東京の大学 - Tokio’s University
東京大学 - The Tokio University

Yup, that’s it. You’ll find this in many official building/structure names. For example:

  • 損保ジャパン日本興亜本社ビル is the Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Head Office Building
  • 新宿三井ビル is the Shinjuku Mitsui Building

Just to add to that one, the の particle isn’t always about posession.
It is also used generally to modify nouns with descriptors and adjectives.

This is why 東京の大学 doesn’t mean “Tokyo’s university”, but rather “a university in Tokyo”, and doesn’t refer to a specific university. (I’m sure there are many universities that happen to be in Tokyo)

Have you heard of the 日本語の能力の試験? Probably not, because the official name of the JLPT in Japanese is the 日本語能力試験.

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