contributor
27,126
edits
Changes
expansion
*''Other Names'': 江府 ''(Koufu)'', 東都 ''(Touto)''
* ''Japanese'': 江戸 ''Edo''
* ''Japanese'': 江戸 ''Edo''
[[Image:Edomeisho.jpg|right|thumb|"Edo Meisho Screen(part).The oldest image of Edo.]]
[[Image:Edomeisho.jpg|right|thumb|"Edo Meisho Screen(part). The oldest extant image of Edo.]]
Edo was the political center of Japan under the [[Tokugawa shogunate]], and a major center of economic power and of developments in popular culture (e.g. [[publishing]], [[kabuki]], [[Yoshiwara|pleasure districts]]), along with [[Kyoto]] and [[Osaka]]. Edo rivaled [[Beijing]] for the honor of largest city in the world (by population) from the 18th into the 19th century; in [[1868]], Edo was renamed [[Tokyo]] as the imperial capital was moved there from Kyoto.
Due to the presence of the shogunate government, and the ''[[sankin kotai|sankin kôtai]]'' system (and the many [[daimyo yashiki|daimyo mansions]] in the city as a result), Edo was a very samurai-heavy city. Commoner spaces occupied a mere one-fifth of the urban area,<ref>Conant, Ellen (ed.). ''Nihonga: Transcending the Past''. The Saint Louis Art Museum, 1995. p16.</ref> though their economic and cultural presence was extremely influential.
==Geography==
The city was organized around [[Edo castle]], more formally known as Chiyoda castle, which had been the chief headquarters of [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]] since [[1590]].
The [[Sumidagawa]] (Sumida River) ran along the eastern edge of the city, dividing [[Musashi province]], in which the city sat, from [[Shimousa province]]. The [[Ryogoku Bridge|Ryôgoku Bridge]]<ref>Ryôgoku 両国 literally meaning "both provinces."</ref> took its name from its location spanning the river and connecting these two provinces. Sections of the river were lined with the official storehouses of the shogunate, storing especially goods (mainly rice) collected as taxes, and giving that neighborhood the name Kuramae ("before the storehouses"), a placename which remains in use today.
The oldest Buddhist temple in the city, [[Senso-ji|Sensô-ji]], founded in [[628]], sat in the northeast corner of the city, a traditional location for powerful temples believed to defend a city from demonic or evil forces emerging from that direction. Beyond the temple district were ''[[eta]]'' districts, including pottery kilns where roof tiles were made; this was considered a "dirty" profession, and dangerous - due to the fires and temperatures involved, and the wood & paper nature of the city's architecture - and so this was kept outside of the city borders proper. Beyond those districts, in turn, lay the [[Yoshiwara]]<ref>Or, more correctly, the Shin-Yoshiwara, or New Yoshiwara, built there after the Old Yoshiwara, or Moto-Yoshiwara, burned down in the early 17th century.</ref> pleasure districts.
[[Nihonbashi]], meanwhile, located between the castle to its west, and the river to its east, was the center of commercial activity in the city, and the official center of the entire country, from which all distances were (and still are) measured. The area was connected to the Sumidagawa, and by extension to the port and to access to incoming and outgoing trade, by a canal. Nihonbashi also marked the starting point of five major [[highways]], known collectively as the ''Gokaidô'', or "Five Highways," chief among them the [[Tokaido|Tôkaidô]], linking Edo with Kyoto (and numerous locations in between), and beyond it with Osaka.
==History==
The [[Musashino]] area was long considered a backwater, a long distance from the classical capitals and cultural centers of [[Nara]] and Kyoto. In [[Heian period]] poetry and classic narratives, it is associated strongly with wide open moors with tall grasses, and with bandits, though the Sumidagawa, and the view of [[Mt. Fuji]] also feature in literature of this time.
Edo castle was founded in [[1457]] by [[Ota Dokan|Ôta Dôkan]], though the neighboring fishing villages and the like are not really considered to have become a city of any note until the late 16th century or so. Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo castle his chief headquarters in 1590, and established it as the center of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603; after Shogun [[Tokugawa Iemitsu]] made ''sankin kôtai'' (alternate attendance) mandatory for all daimyô beginning in the 1630s, it became essential for each daimyô (or at least the vast majority) to maintain a mansion in Edo, and the samurai population of the city surged.
Beyond the mere construction of the daimyô mansions themselves, this spurred considerable land reclamation projects and the like, which reshaped the landscape and expanded the city dramatically and rapidly. Very soon, the samurai population of the city alone exceeded 100,000. By the mid-18th century, the total population of the city broke one million, roughly the size of London and Paris combined; only Beijing, which also boasted a population around one million, had anywhere near this number of people.
Much of the city was destroyed in the [[1657]] [[Meireki Fire]], as it would be again by fires which swept quickly through the wood and paper landscape, ravaging it. But, reconstruction took place quickly and thoroughly.
==References==
*Moriya, Katsuhisa. Ronald Toby (trans.) "Urban Networks and Information Networks." in Chie Nakane and Shinzaburô Ôishi (eds.) ''Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic Antecedents of Modern Japan''. University of Tokyo Press, 1990. pp97-123.
<references/>
==Links==
==Links==
[http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/ Edo-Tokyo Museum]
[http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/ Edo-Tokyo Museum]
[[Category:Cities and Towns]]
[[Category:Cities and Towns]]
[[Category:Edo Period]]
{{stub}}
{{stub}}