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 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 ...

. Between Okabe-juku and the preceding post station of

Mariko-juku was the twentieth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in what is now part of Suruga Ward in Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It can also be written as 丸子宿 (''Mariko-juku''). History Mariko-juku was one o ...

runs Route 1, which was part of the ancient

trade route A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sing ...

History

Though most post stations along the Tōkaidō were built the first year the route was established; however, Okabe-juku was built one year later in 1602.Okabe-machi Shōkōkai
. Okabe Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Accessed November 17, 2007. It only had a population of 16 when it was first established and even by 1638], there were only 100 people in the town, making it a rather small post town; however, it was still able to flourish. 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 a mountain stream between steep green banks, with the roadway a narrow path walled in on one side by a stone wall. Okabe-juku's ''

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 ...

'', ''Kashiba-ya'', prospered during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

; however, it was destroyed by fire in 1834. After it was rebuilt in 1836, it was eventually named nationally designated Important Cultural Property.Okabe-machi Yakuba
Okabe Town Hall. Accessed November 17, 2007. In 2000, it was reopened as an archives museum.

Neighboring post towns

;Tōkaidō :

- Okabe-juku -

Fujieda-juku 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, Japan. History Fujieda-juku was a castle town of the Tanaka Domain.Stations of the Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō in Shizuoka Prefecture