The era’s architecture was utilitarian and if you’ve seen one Edo-era farmer’s house from the Kanto Plain, you’ve pretty much seen them all. They were in charge of Edo's day-to-day administration, combining the role of police, judge and fire brigade. To the west is a farming community that shares Edo’s rural roots. The heart of Edo Tokyo was the Shogun’s castle—now part of the Imperial Palace—and its two encircling moats. Just a short journey outside of central Tokyo, in Saitama Prefecture, 30 or so minutes from Ikebukuro, is where you’ll find Kawagoe. When the Hōjō clan was finally defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590, the Kanto area was given to rule to Toyotomi's senior officer Tokugawa Ieyasu, who took his residence in Edo. Before the 10th century, there is no mention of Edo in historical records, but for a few settlements in the area. When you’re done checking out the architecture at the museum, Koganei Park also has its own black steam engine train with a passenger car. Yanaka is one of the few areas of Tokyo that was spared from bombing in WWII. Shippers managed ships known as tarubune to and from Osaka and other cities, bringing goods into the city or transferring them from sea routes to river barges or land routes. Opened in 1993 and renovated in 2018, it offers an immersion in the Japanese capital’s popular culture and way of life with a focus on Edo period (1603 - 1868). It’s one of the most fun and engaging museums I’ve ever been to anywhere in the world. Most of them are modern building. Tokyo Before Tokyo: Power and Magic in the Shogun’s City of Edo by Dr. Timon Screech You can use the Amazon affiliate link below to purchase The Shogun’s Silver Telescope and the Cargo of the New Year’s Gift: God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625 . These havens of serenity are splendid during all seasons and they will make you forget all about the bustling city that surrounds them. Shigetsugu built its fortified residence, probably around the tip of the Musashino terrace, which would become the Edo castle. In 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown in the Meiji Restoration by supporters of Emperor Meiji and his Imperial Court in Kyoto, ending Edo's status as the de facto capital of Japan. Under Dōkan, with good water connections to Kamakura, Odawara and other parts of Kanto and the country, Edo expanded in a jokamachi, with the castle bordering a cove opening into Edo Bay (current Hibiya Park) and the town developing along the Hirakawa River that was flowing into the cove, as well as the stretch of land on the eastern side of the cove (roughly where current Tokyo Station is) called Edomaeto (江戸前島). (I don’t always go looking for assassination sites; I just kind of gravitate to them intuitively.). Het Edo-Tokyomuseum (江戸東京博物館, Edo-Tōkyō-Hakubutsukan) is het historisch museum van de stad Tokio, en bevindt zich in Sumida (墨田区, Sumida-ku), Tokio.De naam van het museum is een samenvoeging van de oude naam van de stad; Edo (江戸) en de huidige naam Tōkyō (東京). Edo-Tokyo is a historical museum located behind the Kokugikan sumo stadium in the eastern part of the city. Shigetsugu's son, Edo Shigenaga (江戸重長), took the Taira's side against Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1180 but eventually surrendered to Minamoto and became a gokenin for the Kamakura shogunate. The middle residence (中屋敷, naka-yashiki), a bit further from the castle, could house the heir of the lord, his servants from his fief when he was in Edo for the sankin-kotai, or be a hiding residence if needed. On the contrary, the samurai and daimyō residences occupied up to 70% of the area of Edo. Inside the museum a well planned path of different historical eras of Edo/Tokyo are covered from past till present. The few fresh water ponds of the city were put to use, and a network of canals and underground wooden pipes bringing freshwater from the western side of the city and the Tama River was built. Both were enjoyable in their own ways. Edo took its moats seriously: the castle had two, the uchibori, or inner moat, and sotobori, or outer moat, made up of the … It was not necessarily the largest of his residences, but the most convenient to commute to the castle. The fire destroyed the dungeon of the Edo Castle, which was never rebuilt, and it influenced the urban planning afterwards to make the city more resilient with many empty areas to break spreading fires. The Kanjō-bugyō (finance commissioners) were responsible for the financial matters of the shogunate,[5] whereas the Jisha-Bugyō handled matters related to shrines and temples. At the time, the population of Edo was around 300,000, and the impact of the fire was tremendous. It was my favorite part of the visit because every shop was so varied, and it felt like it could have been a neighborhood before relocation. Subscribe to our Stripes Pacific newsletter and receive amazing travel stories, great event info, cultural information, interesting lifestyle articles and more directly in your inbox! Fresh water was a major issue, as direct wells would provide brackish water because of the location of the city over an estuary. Old part of Tokyo from Edo period. Previously located near Ningyōchō, the districts were rebuilt in this more remote location after the great fire of Meireki. Facebook: Stars and Stripes Pacific The spirit of Edo lives on in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, more than any other part of the city. The city that would become one of the world’s largest metropolises started out as a small fishing village, first settled around 3,000 B.C. Yuyake Dandan and the slope road to Yanaka Ginza: MADSOLAR / Shutterstock.com Edo was nicknamed the City of 808 machi (江戸八百八町, Edo happyaku hacchō), depicting the large number and diversity of those communities, but the actual number was closer to 1,700 by the 18th century. Flipboard: Stars and Stripes Community Sites, Looking to travel while stationed abroad? Danzaemon, the hereditary position head of eta, or outcasts, who performed "unclean" works in the city resided nearby. The park is organized into three areas according to function. I loved going inside each one to see how it was appointed, like the general store with barrels of beans and displayed fresh goods, as it would have been before World War II. Despite their extensive responsibilities, the teams of the Machi-Bugyō were rather small, with 2 offices of 125 people each. East of the city and of the Sumida River, a network of canals was dug. "bridge of Japan") marked the center of the city's commercial center and the starting point of the gokaidō (thus making it the de facto "center of the country"). For a town in Indiana, US, see, Taxes, and samurai stipends, were paid not in, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edo&oldid=993418780, Populated places established in the 1450s, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Articles with Japanese-language sources (ja), Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 10 December 2020, at 14:45. The lower residence (下屋敷, shimo-yashiki), if there was any, was on the outskirts of town, more of a pleasure retreat with gardens. The city was laid out as a castle town around Edo Castle, which was positioned at the tip of the Musashino terrace. The samurai and daimyōs residences varied dramatically in size depending on their status. Read about it here If you are a history buff and into Japanese history, especially the Edo (the old name for Tokyo) period, then you might want to visit the Fukagawa Edo Museum in Koto ward. (Sometimes I wonder if the town she grew up in was stuck in the 1950s…). During the Edo period, there were about 100 major fires mostly begun by accident and often quickly escalating and spreading through neighborhoods of wooden machiya which were heated with charcoal fires. Info: 042-388-3300 (by phone) or https://www.tatemonoen.jp/english/. It was this extensive organization of the city for the samurai class which defined the character of Edo, particularly in contrast to the two major cities of Kyoto and Osaka, neither of which were ruled by a daimyō or had a significant samurai population. The upper residence (上屋敷, kami-yashiki), was the main residence while the lord was in Edo and was used for official duties. The geographical jurisdiction of the Machi-Bugyō did not exactly coincide with the Gofunai, creating some complexity on the handling on the matters of the city. Some of the powerful daimyōs residences occupied vast grounds of several dozens of hectares. The Machi-bugyō (町奉行) were samurai (at the very beginning of the shogunate daimyōs, later hatamoto) officials appointed to keep the order in the city, with the word designating both the heading magistrate, the magistrature and its organization. The post-war soy sauce/liquor shop a few doors down had old beer advertisements, its shelves loaded with bottles and a cash register sitting on an ice-cooled ‘fridge.’ My wife was quick to explain that if you brought your own bottle it could be filled straight from the soy sauce barrel at a more reasonable price. The most surprising story came from the first place we entered, the dignified, traditional-feeling mansion of Takahashi Korekiyo. Dōkan lived in this castle until his assassination in 1486. Rentals and smaller rooms for lower ranked shonin were located in those back housings. In a strict sense of the word, chōnin were only the townspeople who owned their residence, which was actually a minority. A descendant of the head of the Chichibu clan settled in the area and took the name Edo Shigetsugu (江戸重継), likely based on the name used for the place, and founded the Edo clan. The machi had curfew for the night with closing and guarded gates called kidomon (木戸門) opening on the main street (表通り, omote-dori) in the machi. The Sumida River, then called the Great River (大川, Ōkawa), ran on the eastern side of the city. The Machi-Bugyō did not have jurisdiction over the samurai residential areas, which remained under the shogunate direct rule. Kabuki theatre, sumo and woodblock prints are rooted in Edo culture. The locals call this place ‘Ko-Edo’ (translation: Little Edo) because it’s just like an Edo-period (17th to 19th century) town frozen in time. It was pricey … Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province.Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the late twelfth century.In 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle.In 1590, Tokugawa Ieyasu moved from Mikawa Province (his lifelong base) to the Kantō region.When he became shōgun in 1603, Edo became the center of his ruling. Tokyo is synonymous with sci-fi cityscapes and pop culture. Some of this infrastructure was used until the 20th century. Getting there It's a great place for a half-day stroll in Tokyo, as Mario Leto explains. There is no mention of Edo in Japan from 1603 to 1868 is known as... Facebook: Stars and Stripes Pacific Flipboard: Stars and Stripes community sites, looking to travel while abroad! 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