ABSTRACT
The earliest examples of large-scale town building in Japan were the two ancient imperial capitals, Heijô-kyô (later Nara) and Heian-kyô (Kyoto) which were planned imperial capitals patterned after the Chinese Tang dynasty capital of Changan, and built during a period of strong cultural influence from China. Heijô-kyô, founded in 710, was relatively quickly abandoned with the founding of Heian-kyô in 794, which continued as the imperial capital of Japan and centre of court life (though not always of political or military power) until the Emperor Meiji was moved to Tokyo following the Meiji restoration in 1868. These two cities were the only two in Japanese history that followed the symmetrical planned grid of the Chinese imperial style, and did not have a lasting impact on patterns of Japanese urbanisation, which later reverted to a more indigenous style of asymmetrical and irregular growth. The characteristic form of Japanese urban development prior to the modern period became the castle town, which attained its highest level of development during the Tokugawa period, and among which are counted most of the larger settlements, including Edo, Osaka and Nagoya. The castle town can best be understood in the context of the feudal system that produced it.
