原宿
1965
Harajukuはらじゅく
field post-town — a name with no address
- 原hara — plain, open field
- 宿juku — post station on a highway
Harajuku isn't an address. In 1965 a single ordinance erased it, along with the neighbouring village of Onden, and named the merged district after the shrine. The world's most famous street-fashion district is, officially, a place that doesn't exist.
The name comes from a post station on the old road running from Kamakura toward the north. For centuries two villages sat here side by side: Harajuku, and Onden — where the Shibuya River turned watermills through the rice fields. In 1965 a single Tokyo ordinance dissolved both. Neither name won. The merged district was named Jingūmae, 'in front of the shrine', after Meiji Shrine next door. Harajuku and Onden vanished from the address system on the same day.
Modern proof
The name survives on the railway station and nowhere in the address system. Millions search for a district that the city stopped recognising sixty years ago.
sourceOld Onden was low ground along the Shibuya River, worked as rice paddy. Hokusai drew its watermill.
Sources
- 『新編武蔵風土記稿』巻之十(豊島郡之二)「原宿村」明治17年内務省地理局版(北条役帳(1559)に「江戸原宿」と載ること、土人の伝えとして鎌倉から奥州筋への往還の宿駅が置かれた故の名とすること、義家伝承の勢揃坂)[primary]
- 渋谷区立図書館「原宿が昔、何郡だったか知りたい」(原宿村の所属郡の変遷に関するレファレンス回答)[government]
- 渋谷区立図書館「住居表示施行後の渋谷区町名・町界」(昭和40年2月27日告示・同年3月1日施行による神宮前一〜六丁目の成立)[government]
- 東京都ミュージアムコレクション(江戸東京博物館蔵)葛飾北斎「冨嶽三十六景 隠田の水車」[museum]