Japanese houses were built mostly of wood before the Meiji Restoration. Therefore, Edo city were suffered from many disasters caused by earthquakes, floods, and fires. Especially the downtown of Edo were severely damaged. Historical documents of those disasters almost disappeared today. “Kakocho, ” burial list of Buddhist temple, kept by some Buddhist temples of the downtown are one of the few available documentt.
The writer shows some information of various disasters through the number of killed men on the lists of temples located between River Sumida and River Edo in the late Edo era.
The investigation is summerized as follows:
(1), In the chronological change of the number of the death the maximum was showed in the famine of 1837 and the plague of 1862
(2), The wellknown earthquake in 1855 and the flood tide in 1856 killed a great number of men in one day. But the disasters did not so much infuluence the annual total of the death.
(3), The famine in 1837 strongly influenced the number of the death with some different features from the rural district.
(4), Some stories written at that time about prevarence of the plagues did not always tell the truth. Because, the writer finds out the difference between the number of the death on the lists and the stories.

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The curriculum of social study edited by the Ministry of Education in 1948 has been revised four times. The forth edition in 1969 includes that study of “home community” were changed into “Community, its land and people” for the sake giving weight to the way of regional study.
According to “the Principle and the Way of Teaching Geography” written by Professor Toshio Kikuchi of Chiba University, the study of “home community” has been changed little by little since Meiji Era with the change of the educational thoughts and social need.
The writers examine, the problems of study community under his thought as follows;
1. The meaning of geographical view-points and its way of thinking in the study of community this unit.
2. How to teach geographical view-points and its way of thinking in this unit and role of this unit in the course of study of geography teaching.
3. Teaching plan and the concrte teaching of this unit to cultivate pupils' geographical way of looking and thinking.
4. How to teach the maps on large scale and what to be taught in lower secondary school, and map teaching in pupils' education through elementary school to higher secondary school and to their life-long education.
5. Planning and concrete teaching of the maps on large scale about the place they live.
In order to solve these five problems, the writers examine both the new and old curriculums and some other reports concerned, then they make out the methodic role of this unit.
They give the pupils so-called paper tests to examine how pupils studied through field observation in their elementary school days, how much experience of reading large scale maps they had and to what extent they could read maps.
Later, we had an interview research, too. After those examinations, the writers show a model of planning and everyday lessons for this unit.
The above those researches show us that geography teachers should give pupils as many chances of field observation as possible in the community area; they should select very carefully the typical and selected materials so that pupils can study their community area directly.
The study of community should be repeated effectively, in adquate times, in the study of regional geography and Japan in the world. It is important for training technics of regional study and developing a purpose of social study.
In teaching how to read the maps on large scale in lower secondary school, teaching should be begun with the study of contour lines, because they had only a little experience of studying contour lines in their elementary school days.
According to the result of the writers interview research, the writers admit that pupils are much better after studying their community in this way in lower secondary school than before.
But they are at a loss if they were asked to explain some different points connectedly; to explain a certain district collectivly and macroscopically comparing with other districts.
Therefore, the writers find that geography teachers should not expect too much ability of reading maps by teaching the community, they should not forget to teach them reading maps at any time in the whole curriculum of teaching geography.

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