In the Siga prefecture, the boundaries of land lots were considered to be based on the Jo-ri grid pattern until disordered by the land consolidation after the World War 2. In previous studies, while many scholars analyzed about the Jo-ri grid pattern, Kenichi Tanaka pointed out that north-south distance of the each grid section was 110.48m and east-west distance was 109.59m in the south area of the Lake Biwa. According to research reports of excavations, Jo-ri grid patterns were rotated 33 degrees to the east from the north in Tokiwa area in Kusatsu city.
In the Tokiwa area, there are historical documents such as Land Resister written in the Edo era and Topographic Maps produced in the early Meiji era. Mainly due to the measuring inaccuracies, those topographic maps have distortions, which therefore corrected in this paper by using old maps and aerial photos, creating reconstruction map of the boundaries of land lots in the early Meiji era. In the results, a large part of boundaries of land allotments formed square patterns in the outer field of 11 villages in this district but were disordered inner settlement area, riverside, and lakeside. Particularly, the roads were bent, the shapes of land were irregular inside settlements of villages.
The transformation of land boundaries of the land units, Koaza, was analyzed in this paper by comparing the Tensho Land Resister written in 1591 and the Topographic Maps produced in 1873. Both of those documents contain information concerned with land ownership, names of the sections, sizes of lots, names of the landowners. However, the scale is different; 1 "ken" is converted into 6 "shaku" 3 "sun" ( 1 "tan" = 1090.9 square meters ) in the Tensho Land Resister, and 1 "ken" into 6 "shaku" in the Topographic Maps.
In the Oroshimo village, it was in the settlement area of villages and its surroundings, namely farm, riverside, and lakeside, that boundaries of sections do not form in the square pattern. In the lakeside, it is said that development of new rice fields were conducted in the Edo era and village area has expanded 50,137 square meters. Also the area of settlement became approximately 4.7 times according to the comparison of two documents mentioned above. Boundaries of land sections seems not based on Jo-ri grid when new field and site were developed.
In the Ashiura village, the boundaries of units were matched to the ancient Jo-ri grid when the Tensho Land Resister was written more than when the topographic map was produced in the Meiji era, especially inner part of settlement area. The size of settlement was approximately 17,560 square maters in the Tensho Land Resister, whereas 65,852 square meters in the topographic map. It is assumed that the transformations and distortions of the former grid boundaries inner villages and the surroundings were caused by enlargement of the settlement area. Historical documents indicates that area reductions or unifications of land section occurred according to the expansion of settlements.
