was the second of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in Kawasaki-ku in the present-day city of Kawasaki,

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...

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

Kawasaki-juku was established as a post station in 1623, by the local magistrate

Hasegawa Nagatsuna Hasegawa (written: 長谷川 literally "long valley river") is a Japanese surname. Hasegawa may refer to: People A * Akiko Hasegawa, Japanese voice actress and singer * Ariajasuru Hasegawa (born 1988), Japanese-Iranian footballer B * ...

.Tōkaidō Kawasaki-juku Meguri
. Kawasaki City Hall. Accessed December 10, 2007. It was the last post station to be built along the Tōkaidō. It was located near

Heiken-ji is the popular name of , a Buddhist temple in Kawasaki, Japan. Founded in 1128, it is the headquarters of the Chizan sect of Shingon Buddhism. Kawasaki Daishi is a popular temple for ''hatsumōde'' (the first visit to a place of worship in t ...

, a famous

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism represen ...

, so it was often used by travelers coming to pray. 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 travelers in a ferry-boat crossing the

Tama River The is a major river in Yamanashi, Kanagawa and Tokyo Prefectures on Honshū, Japan. It is officially classified as a Class 1 river by the Japanese government. Its total length is , and the total of the river's basin area spans . The river ...

, and passengers waiting on the further bank.

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...

is depicted in the far distance.

Neighboring post towns

;Tōkaidō :

Shinagawa-juku was the one of the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō, fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō (road), Tōkaidō.Tōkaidō Shinag ...

- Kawasaki-juku -

Kanagawa-juku was the third of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It was located in Kanagawa-ku in the present-day city of Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was close to Kanagawa Port. Many of its historical artifacts were destroyed by the Gre ...

References

*Carey, Patrick. ''Rediscovering the Old Tokaido:In the Footsteps of Hiroshige''. Global Books UK (2000). *Chiba, Reiko. ''Hiroshige's Tokaido in Prints and Poetry''. Tuttle. (1982) *Taganau, Jilly. ''The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan''. RoutledgeCurzon (2004). {{DEFAULTSORT:Kawasaki-Juku Stations of the Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō in Kanagawa Prefecture