The were one of the three sites in the vicinity of Edo (the forerunner of present-day

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, Japan) where the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in ...

executed criminals in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

. Alternate romanized spellings are ''Kozukahara'' and ''Kotsukappara''. The site is located in modern Minami Senju,

Arakawa, Tokyo is a special ward located in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. The ward takes its name from the river, the Arakawa, though the Arakawa River does not run through or touch the ward. Its neighbors are the wards of Adachi, Kita, Bunkyo, Taito and Su ...

, a three-minute walk away from

Minami-Senju Station is a railway station in Arakawa, Tokyo, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), Tokyo Metro, and the Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company. The stations for each of these lines are located in separate buildings, necessitatin ...

. Located next to Enmeiji Temple, a large part of the grounds are now covered by railway tracks. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 people were executed here. Those executed include Hashimoto Sanai and

Yoshida Shōin , commonly named , was one of Japan's most distinguished intellectuals in the late years of the Tokugawa shogunate. He devoted himself to nurturing many '' ishin shishi'' who in turn made major contributions to the Meiji Restoration. Early lif ...

, who were executed as a result of the Ansei Purge. Sugita Genpaku,

Nakagawa Jun'an was a Japanese doctor, botanist, and scholar of '' rangaku'' (Western learning). He was a junior colleague of Sugita Genpaku, with whom he studied and worked in Obama Domain, Wakasa Province, a center for Western medicine in Edo period Japan. ...

Katsuragawa Hoshū was a Japanese physician and scholar of ''rangaku'' (Western studies). 1751 – August 2, 1809 He served the Tokugawa shogunate as a physician and as a translator of Dutch. He was the older brother of author and ''rangaku'' scholar Morishima C ...

and their colleagues studied anatomy by conducting dissections at Kozukappara. Kozukappara began operation in 1651, and continued until the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. Executions were stopped in an attempt to convince Western powers to end the unequal

treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...

with Japan.

External links

The Japan Foundation LibraryNihon-kankou siteSightseeing document
{{coord, 35, 43, 53, N, 139, 47, 52.4, E, region:JP-13_type:landmark, display=title Edo period

See also

External links