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*''Japanese'': 中仙道 ''(Nakasendô)''
The Nakasendô (lit. "Central Mountain Road"), also known as the Tôsandô or Tôsendô (東山道) and as the Kisô Kaidô (木曽街道), was one of main [[gokaido|highways]] of [[Edo period]] Japan, connecting [[Edo]] and [[Kyoto]] through a more inland route than the [[Tokaido|Tôkaidô]]. The Nakasendô began at [[Nihonbashi]] in Edo, and passed through Takasaki (to the northwest of Edo), the Usui Pass 碓氷峠, [[Lake Suwa]] 諏訪湖, the Kiso River 木曽川 valley, and the [[Battle of Sekigahara|Sekigahara]] Pass 関ヶ原峠 before merging with the Tôkaidô for the last three stations including the terminus at Kyoto. The 67 stations of the Nakasendô were spaced an average of 5.2 km apart, and in 1843 each had an average of 1,165 residents and 27 ''hatagoya''.<ref name=gokaido>Constantine Vaporis, "Linking the Realm: The Gokaidô Highway Network in Early Modern Japan," in Susan Alcock et al (eds.) ''Highways Byways and Road Systems in the Pre-Modern World'', Wiley-Blackwell (2012), 90-105.</ref> The highway was home to 73 ''[[honjin]]'' and 102 ''waki-honjin'' in total, amounting to roughly 1.1 ''honjin'' and 1.5 ''waki-honjin'' per post-station on average.<ref>Gallery labels, Futagawa-juku honjin shiryôkan.[https://www.flickr.com/photos/toranosuke/31363644767/sizes/l/].</ref>
The Nakasendô saw some thirty ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]'' entourages each year.<ref>Miyamoto Tsuneichi 宮本常一, ''Daimyô no tabi'' 大名の旅, Tokyo: Shakai shisôsha (1968), 57.</ref>
Like the Tôkaidô and other major highways, the Nakasendô already existed in some form during the [[Sengoku period]], but the [[shukuba|post-stations]], [[sekisho|checkpoints]], and so forth along the highway were formalized in the early Edo period. This formalization is considered to have been completed by [[1694]].<ref name=hoso197>''Hosokawa-ke monjo: ezu, chizu, sashizu hen II'', Tokyo: Yoshikawa kôbunkan (2013), 197.</ref>
The [[Mino Road]] (''Minoji'') split off from the Nakasendô at [[Tarui-juku]] (modern-day [[Gifu prefecture]]), to join the Tôkaidô at [[Miya-juku]] ([[Nagoya]] City).
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==References==
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[[Category:Edo Period]]
[[Category:Geographic Locations]]