Tracking down Kaido and inn towns

When I googled “Kaido Japan”, I hit Kaido as the Edo Five Routes. Then “Nikko Kaido” came after. Then, the third one I hit was Shimanami Kaido. 

Oops…I forgot to mention that, there are other cases that Kaido does not mean historical routes that have been used for centuries. 

Shimanami Kaido(しまなみ海道) is a new route that is connecting between Onomichi city of Hiroshima prefecture and Imabari city of Ehime prefecture, over bridges, known for scenic cycling and driving. And the Chinese characters of Kaido in this case is slightly different. 海道(kaido, which I use as “kaido”) means “sea route”. Historically, 海道 as sea route exists. Eventually I am going to touch…probably way later. 

Years ago, I was driving in central Nagano prefecture, and I happened to be on the road with the sign of “Japanese Alps Salad Kaido”(日本アルプスサラダ街道). It’s because there are a lot of veggie farms along the road and if you pick up veggies from each farm(Please buy them from farmers!😆), you could make a salad…I guess. 

OK, these are not what we are gonna talk about. 

Back to the topic…

Now you get the Edo Five Routes and inn towns of each route. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_Five_Routes

(The Edo Five Routes. Wikipedia. Accessed on 1/24/2025)

And see how many Kaidos you can find.

https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c08604/

(The Five Highways and Other Routes Across Edo-Periid Japan. Nippon.com. Akira Kobayashi. 4/21/2021. Visited on 1/24/2025) 

Again, Kaido is everywhere in Japan. Note that Hokkaido doesn’t have as many Kaidos as in other main islands. (But Hokkaido must have something like trade routes built by indigenous Ainus. Currently I don’t have info for that. Let me know if you do know about trade routes of Ainu) 


Let’s take a look at Kaidos in and near Nagoya, my hometown. The maps on this website show Kaidos and inn towns in today’s Nagoya area. Even though you don’t understand the language, you can see the pins lining up like a road. 

https://network2010.org/kaido/

(Source: Network2010 総合索引　名古屋をとりまく歴史街道 Network2010 Historical routes around Nagoya. visited in 1/24/2025)

At this point, I am using websites of what other people have made. These are very useful to spot the routes and inn towns. 

When I learn how to create pins and routes on Google map, I want to create Kaido routes and inn town pins. 

Did you catch how to find the route and inn towns yet? To be honest, in this short blog, I don’t feel I adequately compiled the tools yet. 

We will continue pursuing further more about other lesser-known Kaidos by finding clues to track down in other ways. And I will eventually tackle with each route so that it’ll be easier to find hidden gems. 


Picture below: Nakaotai town of Minoji/Iwakura Kaido in Nishi-ku, Nagoya. This was a merchant/business town. The photo taken by this writer in December 2022. 



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