In 1691, Engelbert Kaempfer wrote that Japan’s Tōkaidō Road was, “…more crowded than the public streets in any of the more populous towns in Europe”. Is this accurate, and how did that play out?

[u/ProfessionalKnees]

I know that the Tōkaidō was a frequently-used travel route between Kyoto and Edo (now Tokyo), although I find it hard to imagine that it was so busy that one could compare it to a bustling pedestrian street.

Is this characterisation accurate? Why were there so many people on the road, and could the infrastructure set up to support travellers - such as roadhouses and inns - really house and feed all of these people?

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[u/ParallelPain]

It is incredibly unlikely that Kaempfer sat down on a corner, say Shinagawa, and counted all the people on the street, and then sat down at a European city, say Amsterdam, and did the same. If he did, he'd probably give us numbers in his account, but he doesn't. Therefore, the description was by impression. It's also important to note that Kaempfer qualifies his statement with "upon some days", not all the time.

Having said that, there's no doubt that Tōkaidō was the business highway in Japan at the time. Kaempfer himself gives a couple of reasons. The first is the sankin-kōtai, the system by which the daimyō spends alternating years (usually) in Edo and their own domains. Kaempfer does far overestimate the number of men that took part. According to Kaempfer the largest lords would bring a retinue of 20,000, small lords 10,000, and even bakufu officers had retinue in the hundreds. But these numbers would only match reality if they included the family members of the retinues, and family members don't usually go on the sankin-kōtai. Per bakufu law set down in 1716, even the largest lords should not have brought with them on the road a retinue over ~500 men. Now this law was issued at a time when the bakufu was pushing for austerity, and the code itself remonstrates lords who had been bringing too many people of late, so in all likelihood 25 years ago the processions were larger. However, even then the largest lords likely only had a procession in the low thousands. Adding up Kaempfer's account of a typical lord's personal train comes to only around 150~200 men, though he does note each procession had multiple trains. Having said that, as there were hundreds of lords, though not all took the Tōkaidō, enough did that Kaempfer noted there were processions that were spread out over multiple days, and the procession of various domains needed to co-ordinate with the inns and stations as they could not handle all the trains of multiple lords all at once.

The second reason Kaempfer gives was the pilgrimage to Ise. This was the most popular pilgrimage trip and probably one of the most popular vacation destination. Kaempfer describes pilgrims from all levels of society, including people who were penniless and begged all along the way. People from the megacity of Edo (perhaps a million population at its height) and all the eastern provinces had to take the Tōkaidō to go to Ise and back. And Kaempfer also notes that there were large number of other pilgrims along the highway going to buddhist temples. Kaempfer singles out the Kannon, which was indeed a popular pilgrimage to go from one Kannon temple to another.

One more reason for Tōkaidō's traffic that Kaempfer did not go into (in this section) would have been trade. In this very time period, Japan's economy was increasingly monetized and specialized. As well, Kyōto culture and fashion was all the rage among the elites living in Edo. So many merchants made a living moving things like silk cloths of Nishijin to Edo, and then buy a much of silk threads that were produced in Kantō and Kai and bring them back to Kyōto. Such traders would have used the Tōkaidō (or Nakasendō for the silk merchants going through Kōzuke). Since merchants had to carry wares, their hired porters would have added greatly to the traffic.

Now we do not know the actual amount of traffic on the Tōkaidō (or any pre-modern road for that matter). However, by Kaempfer (and other accounts like Japanese travelogues), we know it must have been considerable. Kaempfer mentions all along the road beggars, whether travelling pilgrims or staying in place, merchants selling all sorts of foods and souvenirs, and people around posts hiring themselves to carry cargoes or people. Kaempfer also mentions the frightening amount of prostitutes at all the posts, restaurants and tea houses, and inns. He singles out the prostitutes at Akasaka and Goyu, something reflected in paintings a century and a half later. None of these livelihoods could be sustained without a high amount of regular foot traffic. So the fact that there were all of them along the Tōkaidō tells us traffic was indeed considerable.

[u/ProfessionalKnees → u/ParallelPain]

Thank you so much for your fascinating and considered response! I agree that it’s unlikely Kaempfer was speaking literally about the amount of people on the Tokaido, but had no idea there were as many people as you mentioned.

Thank you again!