Drawings of the Land in Medieval Times and the Transformation of Place Indication Systems

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Human Geography Vol. 76; no. 4; pp. 331 - 349
• Main Author: Kinda, Akihiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Human Geographical Society of Japan 2024; 一般社団法人 人文地理学会
• Subjects: drawings of the land; Jori plan; land parcel; small place name; village; 地片; 字; 差図; 村; 条里プラン
• ISSN: 0018-7216; 1883-4086
• DOI: 10.4200/jjhg.76.04_331

The drawing of the land in Medieval Times has been applied to studies of particular manors as a kind of manor map. Some maps of the irrigation canals were also applied.However, no research has been conducted on these drawings. This study identifies five categories of drawings consisting of approximately ten or more articles as follows: ① [group A] explaining the location of the village and common, sometimes with documents (9 articles), ② [group B] drawing of the location of the land (18 articles), ③ [group C] explaining the location and names of irrigation canals (17 articles), ④ [group D] indicating small place name in each grid of the Jori plan (14 articles), and ⑤ [group E] indicating parcels of land (10 articles). Groups A and B are related to the formation of settlements and their boundaries. Group D pertains to the emergence and establishment process of small place names, representing an earlier phase in the development of modern village subdivisions. Group E represents the earlier phase of the modern land numbering system and is recognized as the original form for contemporary surveying maps of individual land parcels.