Naha

• Japanese/Okinawan: 那覇 (Naha / Naafa)

Naha was the chief port city in the Kingdom of Ryûkyû, and the center of much mercantile and diplomatic activity; the city also contained within it the community of Kumemura, from which the scholar-bureaucrat class was drawn. Today, having absorbed the former royal capital of Shuri and a number of other municipalities into its borders, Naha is the capital of Okinawa prefecture.

History & Geography

It is not fully known at what time Naha emerged as a settlement and a port, but it was already burgeoning by the 1420s, when Shô Hashi united Okinawa Island, founding the Kingdom of Ryûkyû and establishing the first Shô dynasty. In the previous century, increased piracy activity around Korea, along with revolts by Fang Guozhen and Zhang Shicheng, caused Japanese merchants to take a different route to China, passing through the Ryukyus and making their way to Fuzhou, rather than traveling to Ningpo via Hakata, a more direct route.

Geography

Throughout most of the time of the Kingdom, Naha consisted of six neighborhoods or districts, all but two of them located on a small island called Ukishima, which sat in the harbor, separated by only a very short distance from the "mainland" of Okinawa Island. Kumemura was located in the southern part of this island, closest to the "mainland," facing the neighborhood of Izumisaki across the harbor, while the neighborhoods of Higashi and Nishi were located to the west. Wakasamachi, occupied the northern or northeastern section of the island, and finally, the port of Tomari was located just across the way, to the east of Ukishima, on the Okinawan "mainland." The Chôkôtei, a narrow, kilometer-long earthen embankment built in 1452, connected Tomari and Ukishima.

While Chinese (and some Koreans) formed distinctly separate neighborhoods for themselves, including, most prominently, the walled-in district of Kumemura, Japanese lived alongside Ryukyuans throughout the other four districts.

A number of important economic and diplomatic institutions were located in the main port areas of Higashi and Nishi. The Oyamise (O: weemishi) was the chief governmental trading center, and later came to serve as a kind of city hall or municipal affairs office as well. Markets were often held in the open space before the Oyamise, which was quite close to the temples, and to the Tenshikan, a mansion for visiting Chinese investiture envoys which is said to have rivaled Shuri Castle itself.

The entrance to the port, to the west of Ukishima, was guarded by a pair of fortresses built on spits of land extending out towards the sea. These two fortresses, Mie gusuku and Yarazamori gusuku, had a large chain strung out between them across the water, which could rather effectively block ships from entering the harbor. The fortresses were quite successful in repelling wakô raids on several occasions, but proved ultimately useless against the 1609 invasion of Ryûkyû by forces from Satsuma han, who simply made landfall elsewhere and approached Shuri by land. In any case, beyond the two fortresses was Omono gusuku (O: umun gushiku), a warehouse where goods to be sent overseas were kept.

Wakasamachi, which according to oral tradition was founded by Japanese, lay to the north of Kumemura. Here were located temples to Ebisu and Jizô, established by Japanese monks, and the Naminoue Shrine. Zen monks from Japan also founded the temple Kôganji, which was the site of the chief Japanese cemetery in the city. Wakasamachi Ôdôri ran through the district from northeast to southwest, intersecting with Kume Ôdôri near the center of Ukishima, and connecting directly into the Chôkôtei on its eastern end. While Chinese envoys stayed in residences set aside for them in Higashi/Nishi, Wakasa was home to a residence set aside for those from the Tokara Islands; traders and those coming to give tribute from Yaeyama, Miyako, Amami and other outlying islands within the Ryûkyû Kingdom generally made port in Tomari, and lodged there.

References

• Uezato Takashi. "The Formation of the Port City of Naha in Ryukyu and the World of Maritime Asia: From the Perspective of a Japanese Network." Acta Asiatica 95 (2008). pp57-77.