was the twenty-second of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in what is now part of the city of Fujieda,

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

Fujieda-juku was a

castle town A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle. Castle towns were common in Medieval Europe. Some examples include small towns like Alnwick and Arundel, which are still dominated by their castles. In Western Europe, ...

of the

Tanaka Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Suruga Province in what is now modern-day Fujieda, Shizuoka. It was centered around Tanaka Castle.

.53 Stations of the Tōkaidō – "Fujieda-juku"
. Hirakawa Tax. Accessed November 18, 2007. Additionally, it was a post station along the Unuma Kaidō, which ran to the salt-producing area of

Sagara Sagara may refer to: People * Sagara (ethnic group), a people of Tanzania * Sagara (Vedic king), Ikshvaku dynasty * Sagara clan, a clan of 16th century Japan * Sekihotai (Sagara Souzou), a leader of the Sekihotai military unit during the Boshin ...

. It flourished as a commercial town and, at its prime, hosted 37 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at '' shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes The , sometimes translated as "Five Highways", were the five centrally administered routes, or ''kaidō'', that ...

''. The classic

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...

print by

Andō Hiroshige Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...

(''Hōeidō'' edition) from 1831–1834 depicts the actual business of the ''shukuba'' as a relay station to change horses and coolies to permit the rapid transmission of high priority messages and goods between Edo and Kyoto. At the beginning of the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, when the

Tōkaidō Main Line The is a major Japanese railway line of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) network, connecting and stations. It is long, not counting its many freight feeder lines around the major cities. The high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen largely parallel ...

railway was being built, residents were worried about the smoke and ash from the newly developed

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s would ruin their

green tea Green tea is a type of tea that is made from '' Camellia sinensis'' leaves and buds that have not undergone the same withering and oxidation process which is used to make oolong teas and black teas. Green tea originated in China, and since the ...

crop, and decided to block construction of the line. As a result,

Fujieda Station is a railway station in Fujieda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, operated by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tōkai). Lines Fujieda Station is served by the Tōkaidō Main Line, and is located 200.3 kilometers from the starting point of the lin ...

(now part of

Central Japan Railway Company is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and in Japanese as JR Tōkai ( ja, JR東海, links=no). ''Tōkai'' is a reference to the geographical ...

) was built approximately three kilometers from the town, which led to a decline in prosperity for the old town. However, after Fujieda became a city, its area expanded greatly and has become an industrial community. Additionally, it serves as a

bedroom community A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

Shizuoka Shizuoka can refer to: * Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture * Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture * Shizuoka Airport * Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain, a predecessor of Shizuoka Prefecture ...

Neighboring post towns

;Tōkaidō :

Okabe-juku was the twenty-first of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in what is now the city of Fujieda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. Between Okabe-juku and the preceding post station of Mariko-juku runs Route 1, which was part of ...

- Fujieda-juku -

Shimada-juku was the twenty-third of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō highway, which connected Edo with Kyoto in premodern Japan. It is located in what is now part of Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. History Shimada-juku was located on the le ...

References

{{Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō in Shizuoka Prefecture

History

Neighboring post towns

Further reading

References