page_title: Japanese maps
section_title: Edo Period provinces
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese maps / History / Edo Period provinces
caption_attribution_description: English: Large plan of Edo revised in the Bunkyū era
context_page_description: The earliest known term used for maps in Japan is believed to be kata, which was probably in use until roughly the 8th century. During the Nara period, the term zu came into use, but the term most widely used and associated with maps in pre-modern Japan is ezu. As the term implies, ezu were not necessarily geographically accurate depictions of physical landscape, as is generally associated with maps in modern times, but pictorial images, often including spiritual landscape in addition to physical geography. Ezu often focused on the conveyance of relative information as opposed to adherence to visible contour. For example, an ezu of a temple may include surrounding scenery and clouds to give an impression of nature, human figures to give a sense of how the depicted space is used, and a scale in which more important buildings may appear bigger than less important ones, regardless of actual physical size.
  In the late 18th century, translators in Nagasaki translated the Dutch word kaart into Japanese as chizu: today the generally accepted Japanese word for a map.
  From 1800 through 1821, Inō Tadataka led a government-sponsored topographic surveying and map-making project.
context_section_description: The Tokugawa government initiated a multi-year map-making project. Kuniezu were maps of each province within Japan that the Edo government (1603–1867) ordered created in the years 1644 (Shōhō 1), 1696 (Genroku 9), and 1835 (Tenpō 6). The names for each of the three kuni-ezu was taken from the Japanese era name (nengō) in which they were created—Shōhō kuni-ezu, Genroku kuni-ezu, and Tenpō kuni-ezu. The purpose of kuni-ezu was to clearly specify not only the transformation of boundaries of provinces, roads, mountains, and rivers but also the increase in kokudaka (石高, rice output) following the development of new field. Maps of each country were drawn in a single paper, with the exception Mutsu koku (陸奥国, Mutsu Province), Dewa koku (出羽国, Dewa Province), Echigo koku (越後国, Echigo Province), and Ryūkyū koku (琉球国, Ryūkyū Province) where several pieces of paper were given. The Genroku kuni-ezu depicted the territorial extent of Japan as reaching from southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the north to the Ryūkyū and Yonaguni Islands in the south. A major flaw in these maps, however was the unreliability of surveying techniques, which often involved lengths of rope that easily became distorted, resulting in distortions in the map based on the survey as well. This was largely seen as an unavoidable flaw however. In 1719, the Edo government created a map covering all of Japan based on the Genroku kuni-ezu and completed as Nihon ezu (日本絵図, "Picture map of Japan"). Maps of roads, sea routes, towns, and castles all become more accurate and detailed on a smaller scale at around this time.
  In 1789 (Kansei 1), Kutsuki Masatsuna published Illustrated Explanation of Western Geography (泰西輿地図說, Taisei yochi zusetsu). This daimyō was a rangaku scholar; and this early geographer's work incorporated Western concepts of map-making.
caption: Large plan of Edo revised in the Bunkyū era
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