was the twenty-fourth 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 present-day city of

Saku Saku may refer to: Places *Saku, Nagano, a city in Japan *Saku, Nagano (Minamisaku), a town in Japan *Saku Parish, a rural municipality in Harju County, Estonia **Saku, Estonia, a small borough in Saku Parish, Harju County, Estonia *Saku Constituen ...

, in

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

Yawata-shuku is located on the west bank of the

Shinano River The , known as the in its upper reaches, is the longest and widest river in Japan and the third largest by basin area (behind the Tone River and Ishikari River). It is located in northeastern Honshu, rising in the Japanese Alps and flowing g ...

, just across from

Shionada-shuku was the twenty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the present-day city of Saku, in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History Shionada-shuku is located on the eastern bank of the Shinano River, just across from Yawata-sh ...

, the preceding post town. Though these two post towns are located not much more than 500 meters away, Yawata-shuku was able to develop during 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 ...

in 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 ...

. It was a comparatively small post town,Yawata-juku
JTB Corporation. Accessed August 3, 2007. but its prosperity came from it serving as a rest area at times when the Shinano River could not be crossed and as a distribution center for rice.

Neighboring post towns

;Nakasendō :

- Yawata-shuku -

Mochizuki-shuku was the twenty-fifth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the present-day city of Saku, in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History Located at the base of Mount Tateshina, Mochizuki has long been known for its horses. The area ...

References

{{coord, 36.2735, 138.3947, type:landmark_scale:2500, display=title Stations of the Nakasendō Stations of the Nakasendo in Nagano Prefecture