Though natural hot springs, and the bathing facilities associated with them, could be found farther afield, it seems that up until the Edo period, Kyoto and the so-called "Home Provinces" or [[Kinai]] were the chief center of activity for public and private baths. Lee Butler notes that it was only when the political/military action of the [[Sengoku period]] came to be more focused on Kyoto after [[1568]] that the samurai class engagement in bathing begins to appear in written sources. | Though natural hot springs, and the bathing facilities associated with them, could be found farther afield, it seems that up until the Edo period, Kyoto and the so-called "Home Provinces" or [[Kinai]] were the chief center of activity for public and private baths. Lee Butler notes that it was only when the political/military action of the [[Sengoku period]] came to be more focused on Kyoto after [[1568]] that the samurai class engagement in bathing begins to appear in written sources. |