ABSTRACT
By contemporary Japanese standards, Kamakura is a rela tively small city, its population only around 140,000, its main streets and buildings crammed between the Pacific Ocean to the south and deeply wooded mountains to the east and west. Yet this seaside resort, close enough to both Tōkyō and Yokohama to be a bedroom community for thousands who work in those giant cities, was once the center of political power in Japan. Like Nara, another former capital, it contin ues to hold a special place in Japanese cultures; also like Nara, it has an entire period of Japanese history named for it.
