Narumi-juku

Narumi-juku (鳴海宿, Narumi-juku) was the fortieth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in former Owari Province in what is now part of the Midori-ku section of the city of Nagoya, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

Narumi-juku in the 1830s, as depicted by Hiroshige in as depicted by Hiroshige in the Hōeidō edition of The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1831-1834)

Present-day Narumi-juku

History

Narumi-juku had a population of 3,643 people at its peak.^[1] The post station also had 847 buildings, including one honjin, two wakihonjin and 68 hatago.^[1]

The classic ukiyo-e print by Andō Hiroshige (Hōeidō edition) from 1831 to 1834 depicts travellers passing by open-fronted shops selling tie-died cloth, typically used for making yukata summer kimono, which was a local speciality of the region.^[2] The railroad bypassed Narumi-juku in the Meiji period, and a portion of the old town is preserved as a tourist attraction.

Neighboring post towns

Tōkaidō

Chiryū-juku - Narumi-juku - Miya-juku

Further reading

• Carey, Patrick. Rediscovering the Old Tokaido:In the Footsteps of Hiroshige. Global Books UK (2000). ISBN 1-901903-10-9
• Chiba, Reiko. Hiroshige's Tokaido in Prints and Poetry. Tuttle. (1982) ISBN 0-8048-0246-7
• Taganau, Jilly. The Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan. RoutledgeCurzon (2004). ISBN 0-415-31091-1