Map of famous places

Views of Fuji

landscape prints by Hokusai, Hiroshige, Eisen and others; works by Sesshū

Series

Modern place namesToday's city names, faint on the base map, for comparison TerrainHills and mountains in pale blue shading Old provincesThe 68 provinces of the Edo period (Musashi, Sagami…), at the rough centre of each

Place shown in the picture: the ukiyo-e series, and Sesshū's Amanohashidate zu

Collection: where the work is kept today, not the place it shows

Tōkaidō (Nihonbashi in Edo to Kyoto)

Nakasendō (Kisokaidō rokujūkyū tsugi, Nihonbashi through Kiso to Ōtsu; 33 stations have the illustration from the Kisoji meisho zue of about 30 years before)

Sesshū's travels: an ink line joins the stops in date order (numbers on black give the order; a dashed ring means the location is approximate); sea crossings are dashed arcs

Oku no hosomichi: Matsuo Bashō, 1689 (Genroku 2). A dotted line joins the stops by date (square seals on paper give the order); dates are in the old lunar calendar

Ise sangū: the road of the Ise sangū meisho zue (1797). A blue dashed line runs from Seki no oiwake to Futamigaura (round seals with a blue rim give the order); each stop has one spread from the book

Saigoku and Chichibu pilgrimages: the Kannon reigenki (1858–59), one sheet per temple. A double line joins the temples in pilgrimage order (round seals with a double rim give the number); each stop has the whole sheet, with Hiroshige II's view of the temple at the top and the miracle tale below

Kashima–Nikkō road: the road in volumes 6 and 7 of the Kisoji meisho zue (1805). An ink dashed line runs from Gyōtoku by Katori, Kashima, Tsukuba and Utsunomiya to Chūzenji at Nikkō (round seals with an ink rim give the order); each stop has one spread from the book

The landscape prints of Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858), put back in the places they show.

The Tōkaidō was the road from Edo to Kyoto. Hiroshige's Hōeidō edition of the Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi has 55 prints: the 53 post stations, plus Nihonbashi at the start and Kyoto at the end. The blue line on the map joins these 55 places in order. Each station also has the vertical version Hiroshige drew about 20 years later (1855), the Gojūsan tsugi meisho zue: another composition of the same station. 37 of them also have the same place as drawn in the Tōkaidō meisho zue about 35 years before (1797).

Hiroshige's Meisho Edo hyakkei came out in 1856–1858. His Rokujūyoshū meisho zue, published in 1853–1856, has one print for each province, 69 in all, and covers the map from Tōhoku to Kyushu, Iki and Tsushima. Hokusai's Shokoku taki meguri (8 prints), Shokoku meikyō kiran (11) and Ryūkyū hakkei (8) are scattered further afield.

Sesshū (1420–1506) was an ink painter and Zen monk of the Muromachi period. Born in Bitchū, he trained at Shōkokuji in Kyoto, later moved to Yamaguchi in Suō, and in 1467 sailed to Ming China on a tribute ship. Of his 6 National Treasures, only Amanohashidate zu shows a real place; for the others the map marks where they are kept.

Works marked "approximate location" can only be placed roughly; their thumbnails on the map have a dashed frame. The two series of Mount Fuji are in Views of Fuji: a mandala.