Introduction

Edo period(1603-1867), is also called Tokugawa period, the 265-year period between 1603and 1867 (when Tokugawa Yoshinobu formally returned political authority to the emperor), Edo is the former name for what is now Tokyo.It started by Tokugawa Ieyasu, he unified the country after the decisive Battle of Sekigahara (located between Nagoya and Kyoto, visible from Shinkansen) in 1600 and the attacks on Osaka Castle in 1615 where the rival Toyotomi family perished. Ieyasu established a new government in Edo and became the first shogun of the Edo Bakufu in 1603.
During most of the Edo Period, Japan was closed off to the world, suffered no invasion from the outside, and had virtually no exchange with other countries. For the most part, it was a peaceful period, with almost no war inside the country, and marked a remarkable time of development in the economy and culture of Japan.
The first national census, conducted around 1720, indicates a population of approximately 30 million people, which remained relatively constant throughout the entire two and a half centuries of the Edo Period.
The population of Edo, at the time the largest city in the world, has been estimated at 1 million to 1.25 million people. In comparison, London had about 860,000 people (1801) and Paris about 670,000 (1802).