- Japanese: 京都 (Kyouto)
- Other names: 平安京 (Heian-kyou), 京市 (Keishi), 都 (Miyako)
Kyoto was the Imperial capital of Japan from 794 to 1869, though the archipelago was governed from elsewhere during the Kamakura (1185-1333) and Tokugawa shogunates (1603-1868). It served as a major cultural and religious center throughout history, and continues to do so today, playing an important role economically as well during various periods.
Though commonly known as Kyoto today, the city was historically far more commonly called by other names. Established as Heian-kyô (i.e. the Heian capital), after which the Heian Period (794-1185) of history is named, the city was frequently called Miyako or Keishi, both of which can be translated as "capital city," through the Edo Period.
Geography
Kyoto was built on the model of the Chinese city of Chang'an (today called Xi'an), its location carefully chosen and layout carefully arranged according to Chinese concepts of geomancy. The center of the city is for the most part laid out in a grid, with the Imperial Palace at the center, its gates facing the cardinal directions. Buddhist temples in the mountains on the eastern side of the city (the Higashiyama area) were purposefully erected there to defend the city from spiritual dangers and corruptive forces which are traditionally believed to flow from that direction.
The Kamo River, which enters the city from the north and passes between the two Kamo Shrines near the northern edge of the ancient city, originally marked the eastern edge of Heian-kyô, though the city later expanded beyond it.
Historically, the city was, for the most part, divided simply into areas associated with the Court, those controlled by temples & shrines, and the rest. However, beginning in the late 16th to early 17th century, Kyoto came to be geographically more strictly divided according to social status. Nijô castle, constructed in 1626 to the southwest of the Imperial Palace, was intended to serve as a shogunal palace, though no shogun visited Kyoto between the 1630s and the 1860s. Nevertheless, the shogunate's administrative buildings in the city were crowded around Nijô castle, along with the residences of many samurai families. The mansions of court nobles were, for the most part, relocated to be clustered around the Imperial Palace. Merchants and artisans gathered in certain neighborhoods, and areas on the edges of the city were designated for the eta and hinin, the lowest classes, who were considered non-human and inherently impure.
Roughly half of the daimyô in Tokugawa Japan, that is, at least 105 of them, maintained mansions in Kyoto, operated by a rusuiyaku when the lord was not present.[1]
- Higashiyama
- Other temples of note
- Gion, other cultural centers
Nishijin, an area to the west of the Imperial Palace, with its center to the north of Shinmachi-Imadegawa, has remained the premier textile district in Japan for centuries.
The Shimabara was established in 1640 as a licensed pleasure district, geographically consolidating licensed prostitution in the city within a walled area between Gojô and Shichijô avenues in southwestern Kyoto.
History
Heian-kyô was built with the express purpose of becoming the seat of Imperial power, and became the capital in 794, marking the end of the Nara Period.
It served as the political capital, and as the economic, religious, and cultural center of the archipelago, until 1185, when the Minamoto clan established the first shogunate in Kamakura. Kyoto would continue to be of great importance economically, culturally, and religiously, but would not, with brief exceptions, serve again as the sole political center.
Kyoto saw much violence and destruction over the centuries, both from wars and battles, as well as from natural disasters. Various rebellions of the late Heian period, along with significant elements of the Genpei War of the 12th century and Nanboku-chô Wars of the 14th century, took place in Kyoto. However, the city saw the worst destruction it would ever suffer in war during the Ônin War (1467-77), which took place primarily in the city's streets. Many of the homes of the city's samurai and kuge were transformed into fortresses; wood, bamboo, and earthworks were used to construct walls and other defenses, and the streets themselves were torn up to form ditches and trenches. The city would not be fully rebuilt and recovered for several decades afterwards.
It was during the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, around 1590-1592, that Kyoto saw considerable reconstruction efforts. The street grid was restored in some areas, or redefined in other areas (i.e. new streets were constructed). Maeda Gen'i, Hideyoshi's deputy in the city, oversaw the construction in 1591 of an earthen embankment, or odoi, which defined the official borders of the city, dividing the area into rakuchû ("inside the capital") and rakugai ("outside the capital"). Between Hideyoshi's efforts, and those undertaken by the Tokugawa shogunate in the early decades of the 17th century, the city came to be reorganized, with many important institutions relocated, and districts defined or redefined to be inhabited by members of a particular social class.
Along with Edo and Osaka, Kyoto was one of the archipelago's three primary centers of commerce and urban commoner culture during the Edo period. Not a part of any daimyô's domain, Kyoto was governed by a shogunate official called the Kyoto shoshidai, who oversaw the city's administrative affairs on behalf of the shogunate. Boasting a sizeable population of roughly 200,000 by the end of the 16th century, Kyoto's population nearly doubled to roughly 350,000-400,000 over the course of the Edo period.[1] Ukiyo-e, kabuki, jôruri (puppet theatre), and various new forms of literature, along with the various arts and entertainments of the pleasure districts, thrived alongside older, more traditional arts, many of them developing into distinct forms and styles exclusive to Kyoto, reflecting a decidedly more reserved, traditional, and slower pace and lifestyle than their Edo and Osaka cousins.
As always a major religious center, Tokugawa era Kyoto boasted seven or eight thousand Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, the city being therefore home to tens of thousands of Shinto priests and Buddhist monks and nuns.[1]
- Shinsengumi
- Kobu gattai
The final Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, declared his resignation and the abolition of the shogunate while in Kyoto, having never stepped foot in Edo as shogun. For the first time in over a thousand years, the Imperial Court was moved, this time from Kyoto to Edo, newly renamed as Tokyo, marking the end of the Edo period and the beginning of the Meiji Period.
Culture
References
- Ching, Francis D.K. et al. A Global History of Architecture. Second Edition. John Wiley & Sons, 2011. p590.
