Kamigata (上方) was the colloquial term for a region today called Kansai (kan, barrier; sai, west) in Japan.[1] This large area encompasses the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. The term was also sometimes used to refer only to Kyoto city. The term is used particularly when discussing elements of Edo period urban culture such as ukiyo-e and kabuki, and when making a comparison to the urban culture of the Edo/Tokyo region. The term was no longer used as name for the Kansai provinces when Emperor Meiji moved to Edo in 1868.[1] An account described Kamigata suji as one of the two regions that emerged from the division of Japan for the purpose of taxation with the other being Kwanto-suji.[2]
Kabuki, ukiyo-e, and many of the other related fields of popular and urban culture of the Edo period in fact originated in Kamigata before being transmitted to Edo. The vast majority of scholarship on the urban culture of the Edo period (1603–1867), even today, focuses on culture in Edo; Kamigata culture, though it is beginning to be studied more and more, and represented in museum exhibits more often as well, remains very much overshadowed.