Tōkaidō

Tōkaidō

The Tōkaidō (東海道^?) was originally an old Japanese geographical region that made up the gokishichidō system and was situated along the southeastern edge of Honshū, its name literally means 'Eastern Sea Way'.^[1]

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:^[2]

• Iga Province
• Ise Province
• Shima Province
• Owari Province
• Mikawa Province
• Tōtōmi Province
• Suruga Province
• Kai Province
• Izu Province
• Sagami Province
• Musashi Province
• Awa Province
• Kazusa Province
• Shimousa Province
• Hitachi Province

In the Edo period, the Tōkaidō road (東海道, Eastern Ocean Road^?) was demonstrably the most important in Japan; and this marked prominence continued after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate. In the early Meiji period, 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

Notes

References

• 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.
• Sorensen, André. (2002). The Making of Urban Japan: cities and Planning from Edo to the Twenty-first Century. London: Routledge. 10-ISBN 0-415-22651-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-415-22651-6 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-415-35422-6; 13-ISBN 978-0-415-35422-6 (paper)
• Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652], Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.... Click link to digitized, full-text copy of this book (in French)

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