The is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. It is part of the ''

Gokishichidō was the name for ancient administrative units organized in Japan during the Asuka period (AD 538–710), as part of a legal and governmental system borrowed from the Chinese. Though these units did not survive as administrative structures beyon ...

'' system. The term also refers to a series of roads that connected the capitals (国府 ''kokufu'') of each of the provinces that made up the region. The fifteen ancient provinces of the region include the following: * Iga Province *

Ise Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today includes most of modern Mie Prefecture. Ise bordered on Iga, Kii, Mino, Ōmi, Owari, Shima, and Yamato Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History The name of Ise appears ...

* Shima Province * Owari Province * Mikawa Province *

Tōtōmi Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today western Shizuoka Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Tōtōmi''" in . Tōtōmi bordered on Mikawa, Suruga and Shinano Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . The or ...

* Suruga Province * Kai Province *

Izu Province was a province of Japan in the area of Shizuoka Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Izu''" in . Izu bordered on Sagami and Suruga Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . The mainland portion of Izu Province, comprising th ...

Sagami Province was a province of Japan located in what is today the central and western Kanagawa Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Kanagawa''" at . Sagami Province bordered the provinces of Izu, Musashi, and Suruga. It had access to the Pac ...

* Musashi Province * Awa Province *

Kazusa Province was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. The province was located in the middle of the Bōsō Peninsula, whose name takes its first ''kanji'' from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa province ...

Shimōsa Province was a province of Japan in the area modern Chiba Prefecture, and Ibaraki Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Shimōsa''" in . It lies to the north of the Bōsō Peninsula (房総半島), whose name takes its first ''kanji'' from ...

Hitachi Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa (Lower Fusa), Shimotsuke, and Mutsu ( Iwase -17 ...

In 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 characte ...

, the was demonstrably the most important in Japan; and this marked prominence continued after the fall of the

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 ...

. In the early

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 ...

, this region's eastern route was the one chosen for stringing the telegraph lines which connected the old capital city of Kyoto with the new "eastern capital" at Tokyo. In the modern, post- Pacific War period, all measures show the Tōkaidō region increasing in its dominance as the primary center of population and employment.Sorensen, André. (2002).

Notes

References

* Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005)
''Japan encyclopedia.''
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
OCLC 58053128
* Smith, Mary C. (1897)
"On the Tokaido,"
in
''Life in Asia.'' ''The World and Its People'' (Dunton Larkin, ed.)
Vol. VI. Boston: Silver, Burdett & Company
OCLC 6747545
* Sorensen, André. (2002). ''The Making of Urban Japan: cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-first Century.'' London: Routledge.
OCLC 48517502
* Titsingh, Isaac. (1834)
''Annales des empereurs du Japon''
('' Nihon Odai Ichiran''). Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland
OCLC 5850691
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tokaido (region) Regions of Japan

See also

Notes

References