Kokugun zenzu

Japan as the samurai knew it: Edo still the shogun’s capital, Kyoto still the emperor’s seat, and the country still divided ...

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Japan as the samurai knew it: Edo still the shogun’s capital, Kyoto still the emperor’s seat, and the country still divided into its ancient provinces. These colour woodblock maps come from Ichikawa Tōkei’s Kokugun zenzu, an atlas published in about 1837, more than thirty years before the Meiji government replaced the provinces with today’s prefectures. We offer the maps individually, from the general map of Japan to a long run of provincial sheets across central and northern Honshu: Musashi with Edo at its heart, Yamashiro with Kyoto, Suruga under Mount Fuji, Settsu with Osaka and Kobe, Ōmi around Lake Biwa, the gold mines of Sado and the mountains of Tateyama. Blue mountain ranges, rivers and coastlines and densely lettered towns, roads and shrines give each sheet its character, and the maps keep the atlas’s original orientation, which often places south at the top. Each map is supplied as two unjoined sheets; we are happy to join them before shipping.

Japan as the samurai knew it: Edo still the shogun’s capital, Kyoto still the emperor’s seat, and the country still divided into its ancient provinces. These colour woodblock maps come from Ichikawa Tōkei’s Kokugun zenzu, an atlas published in about 1837, more than thirty years before the Meiji government replaced the provinces with today’s prefectures. We offer the maps individually, from the general map of Japan to a long run of provincial sheets across central and northern Honshu: Musashi with Edo at its heart, Yamashiro with Kyoto, Suruga under Mount Fuji, Settsu with Osaka and Kobe, Ōmi around Lake Biwa, the gold mines of Sado and the mountains of Tateyama. Blue mountain ranges, rivers and coastlines and densely lettered towns, roads and shrines give each sheet its character, and the maps keep the atlas’s original orientation, which often places south at the top. Each map is supplied as two unjoined sheets; we are happy to join them before shipping.

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