4800 x 3743 px | 40,6 x 31,7 cm | 16 x 12,5 inches | 300dpi
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Edo also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868. During this period it grew to become one of the largest cities in the world and the site of a vibrant urban culture centered on notions of the "floating world". The city was arranged as a castle town, around Edo castle. The area immediately surrounding the castle, known as the "Yamanote", consisted largely of daimyō (feudal lords') mansions, whose families lived in Edo year-round as part of the sankin kōtai system; the daimyō themselves made journeys in alternating years to Edo and made use of these mansions for their extensive entourages. It was this extensive samurai (noble warrior class) population which defined the character of Edo, particularly in contrast to the two major cities of Kyoto and Osaka, neither of which were ruled by a daimyō or had any significant samurai population. Kyoto's character was dominated by the Imperial Court, the court nobles, its numerous Buddhist temples, and its traditional heritage and identity, while Osaka was the country's commercial center, dominated by the chōnin merchant class. Other areas further from the center were the domains of commoners, or chōnin literally "townsfolk." The area known as Shitamachi , lit. "lower town" or "downtown"), to the northeast of the castle, was perhaps one of the key centers of urban culture. The ancient Buddhist temple of Sensō-ji still stands in Asakusa and marks the center of an area of traditional "low-town" culture. Some of the shops in the streets before the temple have been carried on continuously in the same location since the Edo period. The Sumida River, then simply called the Great River ran along the eastern edge of the city, along which one would find the shogunate's official rice storage warehouses and other official buildings,
