1924 Yoshida Hatsusaburō View of Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Great Kanto Earthquake

This is a rare, poignant bird's-eye view of Tokyo in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake by master painter-cartographer Yoshida Hatsusaburō. Coverage includes Tokyo, Yokohama, Mt. Fuji, and surrounding areas. This view was printed and distributed in 1924 (Taisho 13), just after the one-year anniversary of the disaster by the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun and is a fascinating record of both commemoration and reconstruction.

The Earthquake and Immediate Aftermath

The Great Kanto Earthquake struck the Kanto Plain on September 1, 1923, and lasted between four and ten minutes. At 7.9 magnitude, the enormous earthquake caused severe destruction in Tokyo, Yokohama, and the surrounding prefectures. It also led to massive firestorms driven by strong winds from a typhoon off the Japanese coast. Over 142,000 people lost their lives, thousands of whom died in the fires. Following the earthquake, a false rumor targeting ethnic Koreans spread throughout Japan. As a recently colonized people, Koreans already faced discrimination, and tensions were heightened by the recent blossoming of the Korean independence movement. The rumors, which stated that Koreans were taking advantage of the disaster by committing arson and poisoning wells, led to a massacre, today known as the Kanto Massacre. Between 6,000 and 10,000 ethnic Koreans died, and the Japanese government ordered the Japanese army and civilian police to protect Koreans. In light of the damage caused by earthquake, the Japanese government considered moving the capital away from Tokyo and studied several possible sites. Ultimately, they chose to reconstruct Tokyo.

‘A New and Lively Imperial Capital’

The issuing of this map and the information on the verso one year after the disaster was not only for commemorative purposes, but to document and celebrate the extent of reconstruction. The effects of the destruction were still evident, for instance, in the significantly reduced population of many Tokyo neighborhoods. At the same time, the disaster provided an opportunity to address several long-standing issues, allowing for improvements in infrastructure, urban green space, housing, and administration. Still, the much more ambitious plans of Gotō Shinpei (1857 - 1929) and other reform-minded bureaucrats had to be scaled back due to costs. Unfortunately, much of the Tokyo that emerged from these reconstruction efforts was later destroyed by American bombing during World War II (1936 - 1945).

Long-term Effects

The Great Kanto Earthquake left deep imprints on Japanese culture and history, and in retrospect presaged the turn towards militarist nationalism, racism, and the collapse of democracy in the following two decades. It also is part of a much longer history of natural disasters in Japan, especially earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons. Tokyo, Yokohama, and several other cities needed to be almost entirely reconstructed at considerable cost. The earthquake set back the national economy and the government issued emergency 'earthquake bonds' to help businesses survive. When the government proposed to start redeeming these bonds in 1927, it caused a financial panic and many small banks collapsed, causing more economic strain and leaving the large zaibatsu(affiliated banks) as the sole survivors. This financial crisis caused Japan to experience the Great Depression earlier than other industrialized economies and discredited the political, financial, and bureaucratic elite, to the benefit of militarists and other illiberal forces.

Publication History and Census

This view by Yoshida Hatsusaburō (吉田初三郎) was printed and distributed on September 15, 1924 (Taisho 13), by the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun (大阪毎日新聞) as an addendum to the newspaper. It was printed by Seihan Insatsu Kabushiki Gaisha (精版印刷株式會社) and the text on the verso was written by Hakone Yumoto (箱根湯本), likely a journalist with the newspaper. In Japan, it is held by the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), the National Diet Library, and a handful of other archives and libraries. Outside of Japan, it is held by the National Library of Australia and Stanford University. It is scarce to the market.