Yoshiwara

This article is about the Tokyo red-light district. For the locality in Mumbai, see Oshiwara. For other uses, see Yoshiwara (disambiguation).
Cherry Blossom Time in Nakanochō of the Yoshiwara by Utagawa Hiroshige depicting the main street lined up by the pleasure houses, circa 1848-1849
Yoshiwara Night Scene, ukiyo-e painting by Katsushika Ōi
Women of the Yoshiwara, photograph during the Meiji period

Yoshiwara (吉原) was a famous yūkaku (red-light district) in Edo, present-day Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1617, Yoshiwara was one of three licensed and well-known red-light districts created during the early 17th century by the Tokugawa shogunate, alongside Shimabara in Kyoto in 1640[1] and Shinmachi in Osaka.[1]

Created by the shogunate to curtail the tastes of and sequester the nouveau riche chōnin (merchant) classes, the entertainment offered in Yoshiwara, alongside other licensed districts, would eventually originate geisha, who would become known as the fashionable companions of the chōnin classes and simultaneously cause the demise of oiran, the upper-class courtesans of the red-light districts.

  1. ^ a b Avery, Anne Louise. Flowers of the Floating World: Geisha and Courtesans in Japanese Prints and Photographs, 1772–1926 [Exhibition Catalogue] (Sanders of Oxford & Mayfield Press: Oxford, 2006)