Nikkō Kaidō

The Nikkō Kaidō (日光街道) was one of the five routes of the Edo period and it was built to connect Edo (modern-day Tokyo) with the temple-shrine complex of the Mangan-ji and Tōshōsha (now called the Rinnō-ji and Tōshōgū), which are located in the present-day city of Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. It was an ancient path that became formalised when power moved to Edo, and was established fully in 1617 by Tokugawa Hidetada, to give safer access to the temple-shrine mausoleum of his father, the first shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was buried there that year.[1] With only twenty-one stations, the Nikkō Kaidō was the shortest of the five routes, and it shares seventeen stations with the Ōshū Kaidō. Its route can be traced with Japan's National Route 4 and National Route 119.

The Five Routes