Kiri-ezu

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Card folded (16.5 × 9.5 cm)
Shibaguchi-minami card

Kiri-ezu ( Japanese 切 絵 図 , German roughly: "Section maps ") are district maps that were produced in the middle of the 19th century for the then capital of Japan, Edo (now Tokyo ).

Preliminary remark

With the increased travel activities in the Edo period , paths ( 道 中 , dōchū ) maps were created in leporello folds , showing the towns and terrain to the right and left of the street, and maps of the big cities. The latter had a decorative design, but with a scale of 1: 1,000,000, despite their size of more than one meter, they were only suitable for rough orientation.

District maps

For the great Edo, district maps were created at the beginning of the 19th century, among which those of the Owariya publishing house were particularly popular. The Kaei (1838–1854) edition comprised 26 sheets, the Ansei (1854–1860) edition 28 sheets and finally the Bunkyū (1881–1864) edition 30 sheets, to which a 31st sheet was added. The format of the sheets is 40 × 60 cm, but there are also much wider sheets. The depicted city districts are not based on any grid, north is practically selected and noted on every sheet. The cut-outs were also chosen pragmatically and - often somewhat violently - brought into a rectangular shape. All cards can be folded to a 16.5 × 9.5 cm format, which results in an easy-to-use set of cards. The entire set was available in a matching wooden box.

Map legend

Legend

The cards show the contours in black in five colors (the land of the sword nobility remained white):

  • yellow: the roads and bridges
  • red: temples and shrines
  • gray: citizen quarters
  • blue: body of water
  • green: forest, meadows, horse-drawn trams, etc. a.

The land of the daimyō shows the main residence ( 上 屋 敷 , kami-yashiki ) with name and Kamon (family coat of arms), the secondary ( 中 屋 敷 , naka-yashiki ) and sub-residence ( 下 屋 敷 , shimo-yashiki ) without a kamon with a square or round marking. The Hatamoto properties only bear the name. All names are entered so that they begin on the side of the property where the entrance is. The lower samurai lived in properties that are registered as the “vanguard group” ( 先手 組 , sente-gumi ) or as a “100- person group” ( 百 人 組 , hyakunin-gumi ). The gray districts of the citizens ( 町 民 , chōmin ) only contain location information .

Well-known temples and shrines are illustrated. The guard houses ( ach 番 , tsujiban ) are on the streets, and the streets with steep gradients ( 坂 道 , sakamichi ) are marked by hatching.

The maps as a reflection of social conditions

The Shubi pine on the edge of the harbor.
Above: Kan'ei-ji
Below: Shikendera .

As the maps show, there were the quarters around the Shogun's residence that were exclusively inhabited by the sword nobility and there were the bourgeois quarters like Ginza or Kanda . But in large parts of the city people lived mixed classes: on the hills the samurai, in the narrow valleys in between the common people. Craftsmen and suppliers had short ways to get orders at the entrance to a residence. Citizens quarters can also often be found to the right and left of the through streets. The countless small temples are also striking, often as whole groups next to each other.

With their wealth of detail, these maps are a good source of information, as some examples show.

  • So show z. B. the different editions of the same sheet that daimyo with positions in the shogunate were assigned official property near the residence, which they had to leave again after completion.
  • As from colored woodcuts , e.g. B. from Hiroshige , known, when boat trips on the Sumida River, people liked to rest in the shade of the “head-to-toe pine” ( 首尾 ノ 松 , shubi no matsu ). As you can see on the Asakusa map , it was on the outside between the 4th and 5th docks.
  • When looking for the club house of the German Society for Nature and Ethnology of East Asia between 1880 and 1882, a map of the district was helpful. The address " Uyeno , Shikendera No.5", which has only been handed down from literature in Latin transcription , suggested a temple. However, there is no temple called Shiken-dera in Ueno or the surrounding area. On the Shitaya map , the location was then found as “At the four temples” ( 四 軒 寺 , Shikendera ).

The intermingling of the city, which is clearly visible on these maps, with the tiny properties of the citizens led to major problems in urban development in the post-Edo period. Around 1980 it took the Mori Buildings company years to relocate or compensate for the residents of the small houses on the slope that is now occupied by the ARC Hills with hotels, the Suntory Hall and modern apartments. On the other hand, the large pieces of land belonging to the daimyo, which were clearly visible on the maps and which fell to the emperor or the state after the Meiji Restoration, made it easier to build government buildings, barracks and universities.

List of cards

The “wheat noodle slope path” ( Udon -zaka ) in Roppongi

The following sheet titles may differ from those on the cover.

  • Kandabashi-nai Daimyō-kōji Uchi-sakurada ( 大名 小路 神 田 橋 内 絵 図 )
    • also: Kuruwa-nai Daimyō-kōji ( 御 曲 輪 内 大名 小路 絵 図 )
  • Kōjimachi Nagatachō Soto-sakurada ( 麹 町 永田 町 外 桜 田 絵 図 )
  • Banchō ( 東 都 番 町 大 絵 図 )
  • Iidamachi Surugadai Ogawamachi ( 飯 田 町 駿 河 台 小川 町 絵 図 )
  • Nihonbashi-kita Uchi-kanda Ryōgoku Hamamachi ( 日本 橋北 内 神 田 両 国 国 浜 町 明細 絵 図 )
  • Hatchōbori Reiganjima Nihonbashi-minami ( 八 町 堀 霊 岸 嶋 日本 橋南 之 絵 図 )
  • Kyōbashi-minami Tsukiji Teppōsu ( 京 橋南 築 地 鉄 鉄 砲 洲 絵 図 )
  • Shibaguchi-minami Nishi-Ōkubo Atago-shita ( 芝 口 南西 久保 愛 宕 下 之 絵 )
  • Imaidani Roppongi Akasaka ( 今井 谷 六 本 木 赤 坂 絵 図 )
  • Sendagaya Samegahashi, Yotsuya ( 千 駄 ヶ 谷 鮫 ヶ 橋 四 谷 絵 図 )
  • Ichigaya Ushigome ( 市 ヶ 谷 牛 込 絵 図 )
  • Koishigawa Ushigome, Kobinata ( 礫 川 牛 込 小 日 向 絵 図 )
  • Koishikawa ( 東 都 小 石川 絵 図 )
  • Koishikawa Taninaka Hongo ( 小石 川谷 中 本 郷 絵 図 )
  • Shitaya ( 東 都 下 谷 絵 図 )
  • Asakusa ( 東 都 浅 草 絵 図 )
  • Imado Minowa Asakusa ( 今 戸 箕 輪 浅 草 絵 図 )
  • Honjo ( 本 所 絵 図 )
  • Honjo Fukagawa ( 本 所 深 川 絵 図 )
  • Shiba Mita Nihon-enoki Takanawa hen ( 芝 三 田 二 本 榎 高 輪 辺 絵 図 )
  • Azabu ( 東 都 麻布 之 絵 図 )
  • Meguro Shirogane ( 目 黒 白銀 図 )
  • Aoyama ( 東 都 青山 絵 図 )
  • Naitō-Shinkuku Sendagaya hen ( 内藤 新宿 千 駄 ヶ 谷 辺 図 )
  • Ushigome Ichigaya Ōkubo ( 牛 込 市 谷 大 久保 絵 図 )
  • Zōshigaya Otowa ( 雑 司 ヶ 谷 音 羽 絵 図 )
  • Komagome hen ( 東 都 駒 込 辺 絵 図 )
  • Somei Ōji Sugamo hen ( 染 井 王子 巣 鴨 辺 絵 図 )
  • Negishi, Taninaka, Nippori, Toshima hen ( 根 岸 谷中 日暮 里 豊 島 辺 図 )
  • Sumidagawa, Mukōjima ( 隅田川 向 嶋 絵 図 )

Final remark

If you are lucky, you can purchase original cards, although these are usually in poor condition and often riddled with worms. The interest in them led the Jinbunsha publishing house to issue reprints of the district maps. However, these maps are not copies of originals, but are traced. This limits its value as a historical source.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The notation of the names of high-ranking residents on maps has survived into the early Meiji period .
  2. ↑ For several years there has been a pine tree on the filled-in harbor basin.
  3. ↑ Only originals or copies of originals are used here.

literature

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