Japan’s geography greatly affected people’s lives during the shogunate period. Most of Japan is covered in mountains, so only about 15-17% of the land could be used for farming. Because of this, Japanese people had to change the way they farmed and depended a lot on the sea for food.
Japan is made up of islands, which helped leaders keep the country closed off from other places. At the same time, people still needed to trade and fish to support the economy.
Since there were so many mountains, people built farms on terraces and lived mostly in towns and cities on the flat land near the coast. Natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis happened often, so people had to build their homes in special ways, and these events also influenced their beliefs.
Japan is also a long country from north to south, so there are different climates in different regions. This made people live and farm in different ways depending on where they were.
Get a blank map of Japan and some coloured pencils from your teacher.
Colour your map:
Colour all the mountains brown.
Colour the farmland green.
Colour the seas and oceans blue.
Put red dots where the big cities are.
Look at your map. Guess what percentage of the land is mountains and what percentage is farmland.
Write your guess in a box in the ocean area on your map.
Remember to include BOLTSS:
Border, Orientation, Legend, Title, Scale, Source
TEACHERS: Print for students.
Join the Class Discussion:
Share your thoughts on how the limited farmland might have affected life in shogunate Japan.
Consider the following questions:
How would the lack of farmland impact food production?
What alternative food sources might people rely on?
How might this influence where people lived?
Learn About Natural Disasters:
Listen as the teacher explains Japan's location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, its impact on natural disasters and how Typhoons form and affect Japan.
Brainstorm Adaptations:
In your groups, brainstorm ways people in shogunate Japan might have adapted to the risks of earthquakes and tsunamis.
Consider how these natural disasters might have influenced:
Architecture
City planning
Religious beliefs
Write a Reflection:
In your workbook, write a brief reflection (4-5 sentences) answering the following questions:
How did Japan's geography influence the shogunate's policies?
In what ways did it shape Japanese culture and daily life?
How might it have affected Japan's interactions with other countries?
Mt Fuji is Japan's highest mountain
Traditional Japanese Village
Japan is affected by Typhoons
Japan experiences Volcanoes
Sumo
Kendo
Judo
Yabusame
During most of the Nara Period (710-794), Nara served as the capital of Japan and was known as Heijo-kyo. The Heijo Palace extended about one kilometer wide and one kilometer long and served as the site of the emperor's residence and government offices.
Key sites in Shogunate Japan
Complete the worksheet to the right. Then check your answers with the teacher. 👇Teachers to add a copy for each student in Google Classroom.
During the shogunate period in Japan, the country was divided into many feudal domains, each ruled by a daimyo, or feudal lord. These domains were often centered around a castle, which was a magnificent structure of stone, surrounded by wide moats and topped by a multi-tiered roof.Â
The castles were built on hills or other high ground, which provided a strategic advantage in warfare. The terrain of these locations varied, but many were located in mountainous regions, which provided natural defences against attack.Â
The vegetation in these areas included forests of cedar and cypress trees, which were used for building and other purposes. In addition to the castles, there were also many farming villages throughout Japan, which were home to the common people.Â
These villages were often located in fertile river valleys, where rice and other crops could be grown. Life under the shoguns was highly stratified, with the population falling into distinct classes based primarily on their economic or political functions.
The Google doc below has been printed out by your teacher. An electronic copy has been added to Google Classroom and you will be expected to use the links in the document to access the relevant website pages on the Internet. All of your work should be completed on the hard copy version of this document. Read the instructions carefully and complete the task.
Use the buttons under each image to explore the castles and palaces.Â
In the shogun’s palaces, the animals painted on the walls showed who was allowed in each room. The first and biggest rooms, called Tozamurai, were for feudal lords to wait in when they visited. These rooms were decorated with gold paintings of strong, scary tigers to show the shogun’s power. These rooms were also called Tora-no-ma, or Tiger rooms, because of the tiger pictures on the walls.
Four hundred years ago, people in Japan thought leopards were just female tigers. Artists in Japan had never seen a real tiger because tigers did not live in Japan and were too dangerous to bring from other countries. So, painters used cats as their models for tigers. That’s why Japanese tiger paintings look cuter and a bit stiff compared to Chinese tiger paintings.