2013 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 345-352
This report examines how the trace of natural disasters such as "Massive tsunami of Meiwa" in 1771 was recorded on the cadastral maps and cadasters produced by "The land arrangement enterprise" from around 1899 in Okinawa Prefecture which remain in Miyako and Yaeyama Islands especially. In Tarama Island, for example,these cadastral maps and cadasters show the structure of village with town planning and forest belt which has been called "Po-gu" around housing lands and farmlands can be seen clearly in the flooded district by "Massive tsunami of Meiwa". Moreover, many of land owners who lived in the flooded district had owned farmland on the hills far distantly from residences of them. Although it is often indicated that forest belt had been maintained for "protection-against-wind" function and and that their unnatural possession of farmland was formed on the unique history of colony movement in Okinawa, it is also assumed a possibility that such a structure of village was built by the memories and the measures against "Massive tsunami of Meiwa".
