Page 206 - Changing Living Spaces

Masanori Takashima

of arable land in the first half of the early modern period. Since agricul-
tural production in the area was advanced in ancient period, the cultiva-
ble land reached its limit in the latter half of the Tokugawa period. The
growth rate of paddy fields in the Tōsan region was extremely low com-
pared to the other regions, which can be explained by the mountainous
terrain of this region.
The region where there was a high growth rate of paddy fields is outside
the Kinai region. The growth rate was higher in western Japan, includ-
ing central Japan, than in eastern Japan. The annual growth rates were
0.19 percent, 0.37 percent, and 0.29 percent in eastern, central, and west-
ern Japan, respectively. The growth rate in central Japan was much high-
er than that in eastern and western Japan.
Regarding the expansion of arable land in central Japan, the expan-
sion of paddy fields in the Niigata and Hokuriku regions and the expan-
sion of paddy fields and non-paddy fields in the Tōkai region are plausi-
ble (table 7). Paddy fields in the Niigata and Hokuriku regions expanded
approximately 1.7 times; in the Tōkai region, paddy and non-paddy fields
expanded about 2.1 times and non-paddy fields expanded 1.8 times. In
the Tōkai region, the expansion of non-paddy fields was more remarka-
ble than that of paddy fields, mainly due to the expansion of non-paddy
fields for commercial crops such as cotton cultivation during this period.
In Kinai, around Kinai, and in the eastern Kantō regions, the growth
rate of paddy fields was low in the latter half of the Tokugawa period.
However, it appears that the rate of conversion of original land into pad-
dy fields was high in these regions, in contrast to the expansion of land
development in the first half of the Tokugawa period. The proportion of
non-paddy fields in the East Kantō and West Kantō regions was over 10
percent. This is due to the geography of the regions. The Kantō Plain is a
stratum group of volcanic ash origin, called the Kantō loam layer, which is
suitable for non-paddy cultivation.

Historical Analysis Based on Natural Environments
and Political Background
Despite the temporal and regional data limitations in both the ancient
and mediaeval periods, the available data clearly show that the Japanese
archipelago as a whole continued to expand its arable land. Based on the
available data, it can be said that the epochal phase of arable land expan-
sion was reached in the first half of the ancient period and the latter half
of the early modern period.

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