Fields used for shifting cultivation in Japan were called sasu or sori and these terms still remain in many districts as place-names. The writer shows in this paper distribution of such names and their relation to geographical location in the Chichibu district, Saitama Prefecture.
Place-names indicating shifting cultivation-sori, sasu, hata and yaki-are to be found in this district, in general they are prefixed by the names of farmers, landforms and the like. Almost all of them are found in areas below about 1000m above sea level.
As a place-name, sori is found in flat areas below about 400m above sea level, that is, in the Chichibu basin, at foot of mountains and on river terraces, while sasu and hata are found on the slopes of mountains between 400-800m above sea level. Sori is generally used in areas of older shifting cultivation than are the others.
