Honjō-juku

Honjō-shuku (本庄宿, Honjō-shuku) was the tenth of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō highway connecting Edo with Kyoto during the Edo period. It was the largest of the stations in terms of population and number of buildings. It was located in the present-day city of Honjō, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

Honjō was the site of Honjō Castle, the stronghold of the Honjō clan since the Kamakura period. The Honjō were destroyed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590, and the territory came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who established in 10,000 koku Honjō Domain, which was ruled by the Ogasawara clan from 1698 to 1612. A honjin was built near the site of the old castle in the northern part of the castle town, which quickly redeveloped itself into a shukuba. Due to the number of travelers, a second honjin was built at the opposite end of town in 1792.

Per an 1843 guidebook issued by the Inspector of Highways (道中奉行, Dōchu-būgyō), the town stretched for about 1.9 kilometers along the highway, with a population of 4554, with 1212 shops. The town boasted two very large scale honjin, two waki-honjin, 475 hatago, as well as 54 establishments whose attraction was primarily meshimori onna. Honjō-shuku was approximately 22 ri from the starting point of the Nakasendō at Nihonbashi, and was the last stop in Musashi Province.

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