was the thirtieth of the sixty-nine stations of the

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

. It is located in the central part of the present-day city of Shiojiri,

Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...

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

This area was originally built by

Ōkubo Nagayasu was a Japanese samurai bureaucrat and ''daimyō'' of the Edo period. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Matsudaira Ietada"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 747. Career He was in charge of silver mines at Sagami after 1601, at Sado after 1603 and at ...

in the

Keichō era was a after ''Bunroku'' and before ''Genna''. This period spanned from October 1596 to July 1615. The reigning emperors were and . Change of era * 1596 : The era name was changed to ''Keichō'' to mark the passing of various natural disasters ...

of 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 ...

. There was a shorter route along the Nakasendō that connected

Shimosuwa-shuku was the twenty-ninth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō, as well as being the ending location of the Kōshū Kaidō. It is located in the present-day town of Shimosuwa, Suwa District, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History First built arou ...

and

Niekawa-juku was the thirty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the present-day city of Shiojiri, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History Niekawa was originally written as 熱川 (''niekawa'', "warm river") because there were onse ...

directly, but the route was changed to include this post town, as well as

Seba-juku was the thirty-first of the 69 Stations of the Nakasendō, sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the central part of the present-day city of Shiojiri, Nagano, Shiojiri, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History The area was named "Seba, ...

and

Motoyama-juku was the thirty-second of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the central part of the present-day city of Shiojiri, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History Motoyama became a post town in 1614, when the Nakasendō's route was ...

, after Ōkubo's death. It eventually became the connecting post town between Shimosuwa-shuku and

. During its most prosperous period, there were over 70 buildings in the town and it thrived as one of the ''

kokudaka refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of ''koku'' of rice. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Koku"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 54 ...

'' of the

Matsumoto Domain 250px, Matsumoto Castle, administrative headquarters of Matsumoto Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shinano Province, Honshū. The domain was centered at Matsumoto Castle, located in ...

. Because of its size, it was divided into "upper," "central" and "lower" portions.Shiojiri-shuku Machinami
. Accessed July 16, 2007. During 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 ...

, there was a large fire, which destroyed most of the town. The post station also served as one terminus for the Sanshū Kaidō, a trade route which brought salt to Japan's interior. Records show that in 1843, Shiojiri-juku had 794 residents and 166 buildings. Among the building, there was one ''

honjin The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku.">Ōhara-shuku.html" ;"title="Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku">Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') dur ...

'', one sub-''honjin'', and 75 ''

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 ...

''.

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

- Shiojiri-shuku -

;Shio no Michi's Sanshū Kaidō :Shiojiri-shuku ''(starting location)'' - Ono-juku

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shiojiri-Shuku Stations of the Nakasendō Tourist attractions in Nagano Prefecture History of Nagano Prefecture