Tondabayashi Jinaimachi () is a popular name of the old temple-based town (Jinaimachi) located in Tondabayashi City,

Osaka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto 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 is one of the

Important Preservation Districts for Groups of Traditional Buildings is a Japanese category of historic preservation introduced by a 1975 amendment of the law which mandates the protection of groups of traditional buildings which, together with their environment, form a beautiful scene. They can be shukuba, post tow ...

(1997) in Tondabayashi-shi Tondabayashi (). The town retains town blocks from the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

, along with

machiya are traditional wooden townhouses found throughout Japan and typified in the historical capital of Kyoto. (townhouses) and (farm dwellings) constitute the two categories of Japanese vernacular architecture known as (folk dwellings). orig ...

s (traditional wooden town residences) built from the mid-

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 ...

on.

Geography

Tondabayashi Jinaimachi is located at the center of the city, on a

fluvial terrace Fluvial terraces are elongated terraces that flank the sides of floodplains and fluvial valleys all over the world. They consist of a relatively level strip of land, called a "tread", separated from either an adjacent floodplain, other fluvial te ...

at left bank of the Ishi river and the midstream. Most of the old town area falls within the jurisdiction of Tondabayashi-cho (); the rest of the area is in Hon-machi (). Tondabayashi-cho adheres to the old town since the Edo period. The town has an area of 12.9

hectares The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ab ...

. It was formed in an ellipsoidal form, measuring 400m from east to west and 350m from north to south. The town layout was designed with a

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogona ...

, which consists of six streets in a north–south direction and seven streets in an east–west direction. There are 25 quadrilateral town blocks in the center, and 16 irregular town blocks on the outer edge. The relative elevation is about 10m from the river to the town. It used a natural terrace cliff to construct the

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour * Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), m ...

(, ) with bamboo groves at the eastern, southern and western edge of the town, and the dug-out

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

(, ) at the northern edge.

History

About 1558 (

Eiroku was a after '' Kōji'' and before ''Genki.'' This period spanned the years from February 1558 through April 1570. The reigning emperor was . Change of era * 1558 : The era name was changed to mark the enthronement of Emperor Ōgimachi. The pre ...

1), Kosho-ji temple obtained a wasteland of the Tonda () for temple grounds. Kosho-ji temple cooperated with eight headmen () to construct a branch temple, town blocks, residences and dry fields. They changed the name of Jinaimachi to Tondabayashi (). In the

, Kosho-ji branch temple () and Jinaimachi were granted privileges and immunities by authorities. The town people governed autonomously against a background of religious authority of Kosho-ji temple. Over the Edo period, the town forfeited its privileges and immunities. In the early Edo period, the town was developed as Zaigoumachi (, merchant town in the countryside). Many people came from the surrounding villages and the town prospered with merchants offering lumber, cotton, rapeseed oil, and

sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

. After 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 ...

, the town continued to prosper as the political and commercial center of southern Kawachi. From the latter

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 ...

onward, the town headed gradually into a decline due to the opening of the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

land reform Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...

, and motorization. As a result, it was left out of postwar development.

Traditional buildings

Temples

*Kosho-ji branch temple *Myokei-ji temple *Jokoku-ji temple

Machiyas

*Old Sugiyama family residence *Nakamura family residence

Modern architectures

*Nakauchi ophthalmic clinic

Notable people

* Tsuyuko Isonokami

References

Sources

* * * * * * * Tourist attractions in Osaka Prefecture Buildings and structures in Osaka Prefecture History of Osaka Prefecture Tondabayashi, Osaka {{Osaka-geo-stub