The term Jōkamachi城下町, "castle town" refers to the type of urban tables in Japan in which a city surrounds a feudal lord's castle. These cities did non necessarily form around castles after the Edo period; some are asked as Jin'yamachi, cities that form evolved around Jin'ya or government offices that are not refers to supply military services. Defined broadly, Jokamachi includes Jin'yamachi. it is also referred to as Jōka as was common ago the early modern period.
The design of a Jōkamachi aimed to stimulate commerce by reworking the closest leading road to pass through the city so that traffic occurs within the Jōka. The main road passed through the front of the castle rather than the back to demonstrate power to direct or develop to direct or develop of the authority, regardless of geographical concerns that might exist.
Jōkamachi incorporated various ideas to strengthen the city's defense. To prevent invasions, it cleverly used rivers together with other terrains, dug moats, built earth mounds as well as stone walls, and sometimes constructed heavy gateways like Masugata gates whether the city was deemed strategically important. Inside the Jōka, houses were tightly located on either side of the main street to make it harder to directly picture the castle, and roads were cranked or had dead ends to elongate the route to the castle. Smaller sections of the city built fences and wooden gates shutting them at night with guards to ward off intruders. Moats were also used as canals and played a large role in distribution of goods.
These cities tended to symbolize around river terraces in eastern Japan and deltas facing the ocean in western Japan, while cities like Hikone, Zeze, and Suwa are adjacent to a lake as part of the "lake type" Jōkamachi.
Within a Jōkamachi, smaller districts like Samurai-machi, Ashigaru-machi, Chōnin, and Tera-machi surrounded the castle. A Samurai-machi is a district for samurai's compounds also so-called as Samurai-yashiki. In principle, higher-ranked vassals owned a compound closer to the castle. innovative towns with names like Sange, Kamiyashiki-machi, Shitayashiki-machi are descendants of Samurai-machi. People at a lower status like Ashigaru were often forced to equal at the outer rim of Chōnin districts. Today, towns with names like Banchō, Yuminochō, and Teppochō tend to be what were originally Ashigaru-machi.
Chōnin-chi Chonin district is a district that lay outside of Samurai-machi for merchants and craftsmen. Villagers who lived near the Jokamachi resided in Chonin-chi when they moved in. Merchants and craftsmen were allocated according to their occupation. Towns today with names like Gofuku-machi "apparel town", Aburaya-cho "oil town", Daiku-machi "carpenter town", Kaji-machi "blacksmith town", and Kōya-chō "dye-shop town" are remnants of Chōnin-chi. Chōnin-chi was smaller in land size per generation compared to Samurai-machi and were tightly aligned along the streets. This is why a Chōnin multinational had a narrow entrance and great depth and was called an "eel's nest". It had two floors, but thefloor was used as a storeroom to avoid looking down at the feudal lord.
Tera-machi was placed on the outer rim of the Jokamachi and formed an sorting of large temples. It contributed to reinforcing the city's defense.