was the thirty-eighth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in the present-day city of Okazaki, in

Aichi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefectur ...

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

Okazaki-shuku was a part of the flourishing

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, ...

surrounding

Okazaki Castle is a Japanese castle located in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. At the end of the Edo period, Okazaki Castle was home to the Honda clan, ''daimyō'' of Okazaki Domain, but the castle is better known for its association with Tokugawa Ieyasu and ...

, the headquarters for

Okazaki Domain was a feudal domain of the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo period, Japan located in eastern Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Okazaki Castle in what is now the city of Okazaki, Aichi. It was ruled by a number ...

. 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 to 1834 depicts a ''Yahagibashi'', one of the few bridges permitted by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

on the Tōkaidō, and one of the longest bridges built in Japan during the early

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 ...

. Okazaki Castle is depicted in the distance on the far shore of the river. Following the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, with the construction of railroads, the route of what became the Tokaido Main Line was laid down through the nearby village of Hane ( ''Hane-mura'') to the south. Unlike

Goyu-shuku was the thirty-fifth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in Goyu-chō in the city of Toyokawa, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A pine tree colonnade, one of the few remnants from the Edo period post town, is a well-known touri ...

and Akasaka-juku, but this did not cause a huge economic decline to Okazaki-shuku. There was a horse-drawn rail line connecting Okazaki to the train station, as well as a teachers' school, which kept the town alive. On the other hand, Okazaki was not able to compete with the growth of

Toyohashi is a city in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 377,453 in 160,516 households and a population density of 1,400 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . By area, Toyohashi was Aichi Prefecture's second-la ...

, which was located directly on the railway, and which gained city-status first. Because of fires during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the subsequent rebuilding of Okazaki in the post-war years, there are few remnants of the

post town A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system.Royal Mail, ''Address Management Guide'', (2004) Including the correct post town in the address increases ...

remaining today.

Neighboring post towns

;Tōkaidō :

Fujikawa-shuku was the thirty-seventh of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in the present-day city of Okazaki, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. It was approximately from Akasaka-juku, the preceding post station.Chiryū-juku was the thirty-ninth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in the present-day city of Chiryū in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. It was the westernmost post town in Mikawa Province, and was from Nihonbashi, the start of the T� ...

;

Shio no Michi was an old '' kaidō'', or road, in ancient Japan and was used to transport salt from the ocean to the inland central Honshū. In the Middle Ages, salt was brought both from the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean to Shinano Province for processin ...

's Sanshū Kaidō :Kugyūdaira-juku - Okazaki-shuku ''(ending location)''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okazaki-Shuku Stations of the Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō in Aichi Prefecture

History

Neighboring post towns

Further reading

References