1878 Fujii Tomitarō Map of Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

This is a remarkable 1878 Fujii Tomitarō (藤井富太郎) map of Nagoya and Atsuta in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. It was made a decade after the Meiji Restoration, which inaugurated a rapid modernization of the country, and shows the immediate effects of the reform program on Nagoya. The frequent administrative changes of the Meiji era (discussed below) required regular updating of maps, which was likely the impetus for this map's creation.

A Closer Look

The level of detail is considerable, down to individual buildings and small city streets. Prominent at top-center is Nagoya Castle, built in 1612 and destroyed in the World War II; it has since been gradually reconstructed. The Owari Domain that included Nagoya was the base of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa lineage, who ruled Japan between 1600 and 1868. In addition to the castle itself, they built the grand residence to the east of the castle in the early 17th century. After the fall of the Tokugawa in 1868, the residence became less relevant and eventually it and its contents (paintings, weapons, ceramics, etc.) were turned into a museum. The grounds were also bombed in World War II, but the museum survived, and other parts of the residence compound have been rebuilt in the decades since.

At bottom is the town of Atsuta (熱田), a settlement organized around the ancient Atsuta Shrine (熱田神宮), an important Shinto shrine dating back two millennia. The waterway at bottom marked here as Atsuta Bay (熱田灣) is the mouth of the Hori River (堀川), which flows into Ise Bay and eventually the Pacific Ocean. As Nagoya grew tremendously in the decades following this map's publication, Atsuta became one of the central wards (or districts, 區) in Nagoya Municipality (established in a major administrative reform in 1889).

At right is an inset map of Owari Province (尾張國), a historical territory comprising the western half of Aichi Prefecture. It was abolished in an administrative reform in 1871, but the name continued semi-officially for several years, as is the case here.

At bottom-right are a series of tables listing the names and locations of Shinto shrines dedicated to various kami (祭神), schools, the reorganized neighborhoods of Nagoya following an 1877 administrative reform, and basic statistics about the region. Like the map itself, the legend is unusually detailed, showing symbols for geographic, administrative, and cultural features, with Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples meticulously cataloged. Signs of Japan and Nagoya's modernization are evident, as with the indication of telegraph lines.

Nagoya

Although not as famous as Tokyo, Osaka, or Kyoto, Nagoya is one of the largest cities in Japan and a major economic hub. Nagoya took center stage in Japanese history in the 16th century, as it was an important power base for the three great unifiers of Japan – Oda Nobunaga (1534 - 1582), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537 - 1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543 - 1616) – as well as the birthplace of Oda and Hideyoshi (because of his famous, or infamous, deeds Hideyoshi is unusual in being commonly referred to by his given name only).

Nagoya thrived in the 17th century with the construction of the city's magnificent castle, the designation of the Atsuta Shrine as a stop on the Tōkaidō (a national road system), and the beneficence shown to the city due to its connection with the ruling Tokugawa clan. Initially a town around a fortress plus the shrine complex to the south, Nagoya expanded throughout the Edo period on the back of an increasingly commercialized economy. With the Meiji Restoration, Nagoya was planned as one of several cities that would house industrial projects, which helped it develop into a major industrial center.

Publication History and Census

The publication rights for this map were approved on August 31, 1878 (Meiji 11) and it was engraved the following January. The map was made by Fujii Tomitarō (藤井富太郎), engraved by Yamada Kusuwaka (山田楠若), edited by Kimura Mitsutsune (木村充恒, noted as a samurai of Aichi), and published by Uchida Kennojō (内田健之丞) and Hasegawa Magosuke (長谷川孫助). It is held by the University of California Berkeley, the National Diet Library, the National Institutes for the Humanities, Meiji University, and the Nichibunken (International Research Center for Japanese Studies). It is very scarce to the market.