The , which roughly means "eastern sea route," was the most important of the
Five Routes of 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 character ...
in
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 n ...
, connecting
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 c ...
to
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 ...
(modern-day
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
). Unlike the inland and less heavily travelled
Nakasendō, the Tōkaidō travelled along the sea coast of eastern
Honshū, hence the route's name.
Traveling the Tōkaidō
The standard method of travel was on foot, as wheeled carts were almost nonexistent and heavy cargo was usually sent by boat. Members of the higher class, however, travelled by ''
kago''. Women were forbidden to travel alone and had to be accompanied by men. Other restrictions were also put in place for travellers, but, while severe penalties existed for various travel regulations, most seem not to have been enforced. Captain
Sherard Osborn, who travelled part of the road in around 1858, noted that:
Along the Tōkaidō, there were government-sanctioned
post stations (shukuba) for travellers' rest. These stations consisted of porter stations and horse stables, as well as lodging, food and other places a traveller may visit. The original Tōkaidō was made up of
53 stations between the termination points of Edo and Kyoto. The 53 stations were taken from the 53 Buddhist saints that Buddhist acolyte
Sudhana visited to receive teachings in his quest for enlightenment. The route passed through several provinces, each administered by a
daimyō
were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...
, the borders of whose regions were clearly delineated. At numerous checkpoints set up by the government, travellers had to present
travelling permits in order to pass onward.
There were almost no bridges over the larger, fast-flowing rivers, forcing travelers to be ferried across by boat or be carried by watermen porters. Additionally, at one point in Nagoya the road was barred by several rivers and voyagers had to take a boat across the sea for to reach
Kuwana
is a city located in Mie Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 141,045 in 60,301 households and a population density of 1000 persons per km². The total area of the city is .
Geography
Kuwana is located in northern Mie P ...
station. These water crossings were a potential source of delay: In ideal weather the entire Tōkaidō journey on foot could be made in about a week, but if conditions were bad a trip might take up to a month.
In 1613,
William Adams and
John Saris accompanied by ten other Englishmen, were some of the first Westerners to travel on the road. Saris found the quality of the road remarkable, and contrasted it with the poor state of roads back home; the sand and gravel surface was "wonderfull even" and "where it meeteth with mountains, passage is cut through". At roadside lodgings the group feasted upon rice and fish, with "pickeld herbes, beanes, raddishes and other roots" and an abundance "of cheese", which in reality was tofu. Although their passage was safe, Saris was disturbed by the crucified remains of criminals which lined the road at the approach of each town. At Shizuoka, they saw severed human heads upon a scaffold and many crucifixes "with the dead corpses of those which had been executed remaining still upon them". Remains littered the road and caused them "a most unsavourie passage".
The Tōkaidō in art and literature
Travel, particularly along the Tōkaidō, was a very popular topic in art and literature at the time. A great many guidebooks of famous places were published and distributed at this time, and a culture of virtual tourism through books and pictures thrived.
Jippensha Ikku's ''
Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige'', translated as "The Shank's Mare", is one of the more famous novels about a journey along the Tōkaidō.
The artist
Hiroshige depicted each of the
53 Stations of the Tōkaidō (''
shukuba'') in his work ''
The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō'', and the
haiku
is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a '' kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a '' kigo'', or ...
poet
Matsuo Bashō travelled along the road. The ''Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui'' (''Fifty-Three Pairings along the Tōkaidō Road)'', created in 1845, is one of the most well-known and fascinating examples of woodblock prints inspired by the road. Japan's three leading print designers of the nineteenth century—Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada—paired each Tōkaidō rest station with an intriguing, cryptic design.
Due to the harsh and punitive Tenpō-era reforms which attempted to impose a strictly defined morality, prints of celebrity actors, courtesans, and entertainers were outlawed during this time. Crafted to outwit the artistic restrictions imposed by the reforms, the woodcuts in the Parallel Series became popular visual puzzles that were frequently reproduced. Because of the ingenious approach to the Tōkaidō theme, the ''Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui'' has been praised as one of the most innovative and important works from the late Edo period. Its three designers followed their individual interests and strengths, and yet shared a common composition—dominant figures against distant landscapes. They used a variety of motifs, including stories from kabuki theater, poetry, famous tales, legends, landmarks, and local specialties.
In the early 1980s, inspired by Hiroshige, American artist
Bill Zacha travelled the Tokaido stations. He created a series of 55
serigraph
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...
s, each depicting one stop along the Tokaido way, and printed 100 copies of each design. These were collected in the 1985 book ''Tokaido Journey'', along with Zacha's recollections (in both English and Japanese) of travelling the road and the people he encountered.
The British painter
Nigel Caple
Nigel Caple is a British artist and lecturer.
Nigel Caple was born on the Isle of Wight. He studied art at Portsmouth College of Art and the Department of Fine Art at Portsmouth Polytechnic (now the University of Portsmouth), where he received ...
travelled along the Tōkaidō Road between 1998 and 2000, making drawings of the 53 stations along the Tōkaidō. His inspiration was the Hoeido Edition of
woodblock prints
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is crea ...
entitled
The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō by
Utagawa Hiroshige.
The video game ''
Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi'', released by
Sunsoft for the
Famicom in July 1986 and later ported to other
Nintendo platforms, features a firework maker protagonist who must travel the Tōkaidō to visit his fiancee, while thwarting attacks from a rival businessman.
In 2012, a
board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a co ...
called ''Tokaido'', designed by
Antoine Bauza, was published by
Funforge. In the game, players compete against one another to travel the Tōkaidō from Kyoto to Edo. Funforge developed a digital edition of the game, published in 2017.
Ōsaka Kaidō
In 1619, the Ōsaka Kaidō (大阪街道) was established as a
spur of the Tōkaidō; it had four
stations
Station may refer to:
Agriculture
* Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production
* Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle
** Cattle statio ...
of its own after Ōtsu-juku. This addition extended the route to
Kōraibashi
is a bridge located in Chūō-ku in the city of Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It crosses over the Higashi Yokobori River and shares its name with the surrounding area.
Naming
The area received the name of " Kōrai" during the Asuka or Nara p ...
in
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
. This spur was also called the Kyōkaidō (京街道), or it was described as being a part of the 57 stations of the Tōkaidō.
Modern-day Tōkaidō
Today, the Tōkaidō corridor is the most heavily travelled transportation corridor in Japan, connecting
Greater Tokyo (including the capital Tokyo as well as Japan's second largest city
Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...
) to
Nagoya
is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most po ...
(fourth largest), and then to
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
(third largest) via Kyoto. The Tokyo-Nagoya-Kyoto-Osaka route is followed by the
JR 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 ...
and
Tōkaidō Shinkansen
The is a Japanese high-speed rail line that is part of the nationwide Shinkansen network. Along with the Sanyo Shinkansen, it forms a continuous high-speed railway through the Taiheiyō Belt, also known as the Tokaido corridor. Opened in 19 ...
, as well as the
Tōmei and
Meishin expressways. A few portions of the original road can still be found, however, and in modern times at least one person has managed to follow and walk much of it.
[Carey, Patrick. Rediscovering the Old Tokaido: In the Footsteps of Hiroshige, Global Oriental, Folkestone, England, 2000.]
See also
*
53 Stations of the Tōkaidō
*
Edo Five Routes
*
Japan National Route 1
*
Namamugi Incident
*
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 ...
*
Tōkaidō Shinkansen
The is a Japanese high-speed rail line that is part of the nationwide Shinkansen network. Along with the Sanyo Shinkansen, it forms a continuous high-speed railway through the Taiheiyō Belt, also known as the Tokaido corridor. Opened in 19 ...
*
Stone routes near Kyoto
References
Citations
Sources
* Traganeou, Jilly. 2004
''The Tokaido Road: Traveling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan.''London:
RoutledgeCurzon. (cloth)
*Vaporis, Constantine Nomikos. 1994. Breaking Barriers. Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan." Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. (https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Barriers-Travel-Harvard-Monographs/dp/0674081072/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219068536&sr=8-1)
External links
Walk the Tōkaidō- an interactive tour down the road.
- from U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
- Teacher James Baquet's log of a walk along the entire Tōkaidō, with photos and comparisons to Hiroshige's prints.
- hiroshige.org.uk, an online archive of the various editions of Hiroshige's prints
- hiroshige.org.uk
*
Tōkaidō Texts and Tales: Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui by Hiroshige, Kunisada, and Kuniyoshi.Andreas Marks, ed. (University Press of Florida, 2015)
*
The Fifty Three Stations of the Tokaido Represented as Cats - by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Wright's Tokaido— FLLW's annotated Hiroshige album — documentary a
hiroshige.org.uk''Tokaido''Funforge's ''Tokaido'' board game
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tokaido road
Road transport in Japan
Edo period
ja:東海道