This is a historical-geographical study of “Odo-dori, ” a by-road so-called in the Yedo period.
The road ran from Suzaka, Shinshu, throngh Nire (a stage), over Torii pass, on to Osasa (a stage), and then up to such post-towns as Kambara, Sugao, Odo, San-no- Kura, Murota and Kamiyama, till at Takasaki it joined Nakasendo, one of the five main highways in the Yedo period. It was a short cut connecting Hokkoku-Kaido, another important highway rising from northern Japan, with Nakasendo.
It was one of the communication policies of the Tokugawa Shogunate to have the round- about traffic route so built on purpose as to climb the steep mountain pass of Usui. In those days when people were so poorly favored in travelling, it naturally followed that they failed to miss any chance of taking to by-roads or short cuts, not only for the efficiency of way-faring, but for the freedom from all the punctiliousness on busy highways as well. In and around Usui pass, consequeutly, geagraphical features and other necessities helped to produce such a number of by-roads as could be seen nowhere else. In this sense, the by-roads in this district may be said to have been really unique. They presented a lively scene with the transpotation of a vast quantity of goods, especially of rice, from Hokuriku and Shinetsu districts to the consumptive city of Yedo, where a number of “doimyos” from all over the country were them residing.
At first the Shogunate was influential enough to force these goods to be carried along the round-about way on to Nakasendo, but once their authority began to slacken, more and more people come to avail themselves of these convenient short cutr- As a result, most of the post-towns along the highway, which had been owing their subsistence to the profits from the transpotation of goods, were being driven to an extreme desolation, and there were competitions ever recurring betweeu the group of old stages and that of the newly-developed ones along the by-roads, for the control over the provincial economy.
Along these by-roads, shorter and more convenient, the traffic did not decline but grew ever busier and busier, till at the end of the Yedo period, it may be assumed, the by-roads were even more frourishing than the main highway, Nakasendo. Odo- dorii, dealt with in the presenet essay, in the most typical of these by-roads.
The writer tries to discuss, referring to a variety of histoical records and pictures produced in the Yedo period, how the by-road grew increasigly prosperous, what geagraphical changes it brought about, and so foth.

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