is a historic Japanese distance marker akin to a

milestone A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...

, consisting of an earthen mounds located in what is now part of the town of Tarui,

Gifu Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,991,390 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture to the northwest, F ...

in the

Chūbu region The , Central region, or is a region in the middle of Honshu, Honshū, Japan, Japan's main island. In a wide, classical definition, it encompasses nine prefectures (''ken''): Aichi Prefecture, Aichi, Fukui Prefecture, Fukui, Gifu Prefecture ...

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 ...

. It was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1930.

Overview

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 ...

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 ...

established ''ichirizuka'' on major roads, enabling calculation both of distance travelled and of the charge for transportation by ''

kago A is a type of litter used as a means of human transportation by the non-samurai class in feudal Japan and into the Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was ...

'' or

palanquin The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of people. Smaller litters may take the form of open chairs or beds carried by two or more carriers, some being enclosed for protection from the el ...

. These markers were a pair earthen mounds and denoted the distance in '' ri'' () to

Nihonbashi is a business district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan which grew up around the bridge of the same name which has linked two sides of the Nihonbashi River at this site since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603. The current ...

, the "Bridge of Japan", erected in

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

in 1603.They were typically planted with an ''enoki'' or

Japanese red pine ''Pinus densiflora'', also called the Japanese red pine, the Japanese pine, or Korean red pine, is a species of pine tree native to East Asia. Distribution and habitat ''P. densiflora'' has a home range that includes Japan, the Korean Peninsula, ...

to provide shelter for travelers. Since 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 ...

, most of the ''ichirizuka'' have disappeared, having been destroyed by the elements, modern highway construction and urban encroachment. In 1876, the "Ichirizuka Abolition decree" was issued by the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

and many were demolished at that time. Currently, 17 surviving ''ichirizuka'' are designated as national historic sites. In the case of the Tarui ichirizuka, there is only a single mound, which is located on the southern side 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 ...

, one of the major routes between Edo and

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. This marker is 112 ''ri'' from Nihonbashi. The mound is also located near the site of the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu prefecture, Japan, at the end of ...

, and was erected on the location of the field headquarters of

Asano Yoshinaga was a Japanese samurai and feudal lord of the late Sengoku and early Edo periods. His father served as one of the '' Go-Bugyō'' in the late Azuchi–Momoyama period. Asano Yoshinaga was born at Odani, in the Asai district of Ōmi Province, in ...

. The mound is in very good preservation, with a height of about 4.7 meters and a diameter of about 20 meters. There are only two ''ichirizuka'' classed as national historic site on the Nakasendō; the other is Shimura Ichirizuka in

Itabashi, Tokyo is a special ward located in Tokyo Metropolis Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its m ...

. The Tarui Ichirizuka is about a 25-minute walk from Tarui Station on the

JR East The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are ...

Tōkaidō Main Line The is a major Japanese railway line of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) network, connecting and stations. It is long, not counting its many freight feeder lines around the major cities. The high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen largely parallel ...

References

External links

Gifu prefecture official site

{{in lang, ja Ichirizuka Tarui, Gifu Historic Sites of Japan History of Gifu Prefecture Mino Province

Overview

See also

References

External links