is the name of a neighborhood (a ) in

Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...

, a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in

Kanagawa is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

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 ...

, about 50 km south-south-west of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. Nishi Mikado lies north-east of Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū.

Etymology of the name

In 1180 the locality of in today's Nishi Mikado was chosen by

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1192 until 1199.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako who acted as regent (''shikken'') after his ...

as the seat of his government, which he called .Takahashi (2005:9-11) (46 years later, after

Hōjō Masako was a Japanese politician who exercised significant power in the early years of the Kamakura period, which was reflected by her contemporary sobriquet of the "nun shogun". She was the wife of Minamoto no Yoritomo, and mother of Minamoto no Yorii ...

's death, the government's headquarters were transferred to a location near

Wakamiya Ōji is a 1.8 km street in Kamakura, a city in Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan, unusual because it is at the same time the city's main avenue and the approach () of its largest Shinto shrine, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. Over the centuries Wakamiya Ō ...

and renamed ). The compound had four gates, and the western one gave its name to the area it faced. The area east of Egara Tenjinsha, now called , used to be called Higashi Mikado, and the name is still sometimes used. Kita Mikado still exists as well but, like Higashi Mikado, it does not constitute a ''chō''. The Kamakurachō Seinendan stele in Nishi Mikado says:Original Japanese text availabl
here
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Nishi Mikado is the area west of the Hokkedō. It was given this name because it faced the Ōkura Bakufu's western gate. In Nishi Mikado used to stand emples calledHōon-ji, Hojuin, Kōshō-ji, and Raikō-ji. Of them, only Raikō-ji still exists.

Points of interest

Tomb of Minamoto no Yoritomo The (see photo below) is a monument in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, located some hundred meters north of the site where the palace called '' Ōkura Bakufu'', seat of Minamoto no Yoritomo's government, once stood. Although there is no evidence his re ...

* Raikō-ji * The site of the

Ōkura Bakufu (also called is the name given in Japan to the first government of the shōgun Minamoto no Yoritomo. The name is that of the location in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, where Yoritomo's palace used to stand. Ōkura is defined as the area between t ...

* The site of Hokkedō * Egara Tenjinsha shrine

Notes

References

* * * {{coord, 35, 19, 42.82, N, 139, 33, 35.38, E, region:JP_type:landmark_scale:1500, display=title Kamakura, Kanagawa