The Senami District Map of Echigo Province
In 1707, officials of the Yonezawa domain opened an old storehouse and found two large painted maps lying in pieces. No one in the domain seems to have remembered they were there. They were repaired on the spot, and a search began for companion maps of the other districts of Echigo. None turned up, either in Yonezawa or at the domain residence in Edo. The two survivors were all that remained, and one of them is the subject of this page.
That map shows Senami District, the long northern strip of Echigo Province that later took the name Iwafune. Today the same ground lies in the far north of Niigata Prefecture, around the city of Murakami, where the coast bends toward the border with what is now Yamagata. The map is a single colored sheet, and it was made no later than 1597, in the closing years of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. It is held at the Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum in Yamagata Prefecture and is owned by the city of Yonezawa.
A Province Drawn During a Land Survey
To understand why the map exists, it helps to know what was happening to the land it records. A kuni-ezu or gun-ezu was a map of a province or a district, drawn for a ruler who needed to know exactly what he governed. In the 1590s the Echigo countryside was being measured field by field. The nationwide land survey ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi reached the province in 1595, and the Uesugi clan, who held Echigo at the time, carried out their own domain survey over the two years that followed. The Senami map reflects the results of that work.
The dating rests on the people named on the map. Its companion sheet, the Kubiki District map, carries a note on its backing paper recording a date in the eleventh month of Keichō 2, which corresponds to 1597. More tellingly, the fief-holders written across both maps are the men who held land before Uesugi Kagekatsu was transferred to Aizu in 1598. After that move the roster of landholders changed, so the maps must record the situation as it stood before he left. When Kagekatsu went to Aizu, and then to Yonezawa, the Uesugi house carried these documents along, which is how a map of Echigo came to survive in a storehouse in Yamagata.
Senami District itself was the northernmost of the seven districts of old Echigo. Its name survives today in places near Murakami, and the older form of the district name, Iwafune, is still used for the rural county that covers part of the same area.
Why It Was Designated
The map was designated an Important Cultural Property on June 22, 2001, in the category of historical materials. It was registered together with the Kubiki District map as a pair, and a later Echigo provincial map, copied in 1741, was attached to the designation as a supplementary item. The 1741 copy was made precisely because the original district maps no longer covered the whole province, and the Yonezawa domain wanted a complete picture to set beside the surviving sheets.
What makes the Senami map valuable is its age and its method. It is among the earliest known maps drawn at the scale of a whole province or district in Japan, from the very start of the early modern era. Later provincial maps of the Edo period became standardized and symbolic, with conventional signs and consistent scales. This map predates that system. Its scale shifts from place to place, and the land is drawn in a way that still belongs to the painted maps of the medieval period rather than to the survey charts that came after. It records a moment of transition, when the country was being measured with new rigor but still pictured in an older visual language.
What to Look For
The first thing a viewer notices is color. Castles, villages, towns, temples and shrines, roads, bridges, cultivated fields, rivers, and mountains are all painted in, so the sheet reads more like a landscape painting than a chart. Boundaries between districts and townships run across it in vermilion lines, the one element that does behave like a map symbol.
Look closer and the writing takes over. In ink, the map records the names of townships and villages, the names of the fief-holders responsible for them, the base tax assessment, the surveyed yield, and the number of households. These are the figures a land survey produces, set down directly on the picture of the land they describe. The companion Kubiki map goes a step further and lists population as well. Reading these annotations is the closest thing to looking over the shoulder of a sixteenth-century surveyor.
It is worth remembering, while looking, that this sheet was once in pieces. The repairs carried out by the domain in the early eighteenth century are the reason it can be unrolled and studied at all.
Around the Museum
The Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum stands on the site of Yonezawa Castle, beside Matsugasaki Park, where the keep once rose. The Uesugi Shrine, dedicated to the warlord Uesugi Kenshin, sits within the same park, and the grounds are a pleasant walk in their own right, especially when the cherry trees bloom in spring.
The museum's permanent collection is built around the Uesugi family's own records. Its best-known holding is the National Treasure folding screen depicting scenes in and around Kyoto, said to have been sent from Oda Nobunaga to Uesugi Kenshin; a replica is usually on view, with the original shown only during special exhibitions in spring and autumn. The museum also holds the Uesugi family documents, a large body of letters and records designated a National Treasure, displayed in rotation. The Senami map belongs to the same world of Uesugi archives, even if it is not always on the wall.
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Q&A
- Can I see the actual map when I visit?
- Not at most times. As a fragile painted document, the Senami map is shown only on occasion, usually within a special exhibition rather than as a permanent display. If seeing it is your main goal, check the museum's exhibition schedule before you travel and contact the museum to confirm.
- What is the difference between this map and the Kubiki District map?
- They are a matched pair, drawn in the same period and designated together. This sheet covers Senami District in the north of Echigo; the other covers the eastern part of Kubiki District in the south. The Kubiki map additionally records population figures and carries the dated note used to fix the period of both.
- Why is a map of Echigo kept in Yamagata?
- The Uesugi clan governed Echigo when the map was made. When Uesugi Kagekatsu was transferred to Aizu in 1598 and later to Yonezawa, the family carried its documents with it. The map has been preserved among the Uesugi records in Yonezawa ever since.
- How was the map dated to before 1597?
- A dated note on the backing paper of the companion Kubiki map points to 1597, and the fief-holders named on both maps are those who held land before Kagekatsu left for Aizu in 1598. Taken together, these place the maps no later than 1597.
- What else is worth seeing at the museum?
- The National Treasure screen of scenes in and around Kyoto is the highlight, along with the Uesugi family documents, also a National Treasure. The adjoining Matsugasaki Park and Uesugi Shrine make an easy half-day combined with the museum.
Basic Information
| Name | Echigo no Kuni Senami-gun Ezu (Map of Senami District, Echigo Province) |
|---|---|
| Location | Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum, 1-2-1 Marunouchi, Yonezawa City, Yamagata Prefecture |
| Owner | City of Yonezawa |
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (historical materials), designated June 22, 2001; designated as a pair with the Kubiki District map, with a 1741 Echigo provincial map attached |
| Quantity | One sheet |
| Period | Azuchi-Momoyama period; made no later than 1597 |
| Subject | Senami District (later Iwafune District) at the northern edge of Echigo Province, in present-day northern Niigata Prefecture |
| Viewing | Not on permanent display; shown occasionally in special exhibitions. Check the museum schedule before visiting. |
| Museum hours | 9:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30) |
| Access | About 10 minutes by city loop bus from JR Yonezawa Station, alight at Uesugi Jinja-mae; about 13 minutes by car from the Yonezawa-Chuo interchange on the Tohoku-Chuo Expressway |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Echigo no Kuni Senami-gun Ezu
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/201/10502
- Denkoku no Mori, Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum (official site)
- https://www.denkoku-no-mori.yonezawa.yamagata.jp/
- Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum, collection overview
- https://www.denkoku-no-mori.yonezawa.yamagata.jp/uesugi.htm
Last verified: 2026.06.18