Edo Jidai Trivia

[Elizabeth]

I took the picture below in Nihombashi. It is a historical map of Edo in the 17th century. We see that Asakusa or Fukagawa were clearly outside the city itself.

I don't know when this map was drawn, but at least in the case of north-east Asakusa, roughly bounded by the Sumida, was reclaimed and incorporated by the 1650's. Of course that was still strictly "Wild West" Edo and of the so-called low districts/commoner neighborhoods beyond Daimyo Lane, were scrunched into flat areas of Kanda and Nihonbashi such that nothing outside the Kanda R. would have been particularly considered Shitamachi until the end of Meiji....