Yaadui

• Okinawan: 屋取 (yaadui)

Beginning around the 1700s, many members of the scholar-aristocracy of the Ryûkyû Kingdom, suffering from financial difficulties, left Shuri in search of more affordable places to live. This phenomenon, known as yaadui, resulted in the creation of many new settlements in what had been up until then some of the least settled and/or least developed areas on the edges of the cities of Naha and Shuri.

Some 130 settlements or villages were begun in this fashion; the Maji and Hantagawa neighborhoods surrounding the royal gardens at Shikinaen serve as two examples.

References

• "Yaadui," Okinawa Compact Encyclopedia, Ryukyu Shimpo, 1 March 2003.