Sankin-kōtai (Alternate Attendance)

Timeline

1. c. 1597–1634Edo · JapanIn Toyotomi Hideyoshi's time there was precedent for requiring daimyo to go to Osaka for 'journey to the capital and audience.' Tokugawa Ieyasu issued the first edition of the Buke Shohatto in 1615 (Genna 1), requiring daimyo to maintain lord-vassal relations with the shogunate and attend regularly, but alternating residence was not yet formalized. Tokugawa Iemitsu continued and strengthened this practice early in his rule.
2. 1635–1642Edo · JapanTokugawa Iemitsu revised the Buke Shohatto in 1635, explicitly stipulating that tozama daimyo must attend in Edo each April, return to their domains the following year, and alternate in the intervening year; fudai daimyo followed similar rules. Daimyo's principal wives and heirs were required to reside in Edo as institutional hostages. This marked sankin-kōtai's elevation from custom to legal obligation.
3. 1660–1680Along the five highways and Edo · JapanIn the 1670s, under fourth shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (r. 1651–1680), sankin-kōtai operated smoothly; daimyo processions traveled regularly between their domains and Edo, spurring the prosperity of post-station economies along the Tōkaidō, Nakasendō, and the other five highways. In this phase some fifty-odd daimyo processions were on the road each year, profoundly influencing Edo's urban expansion and commercial development.
4. 1862–1868Edo · JapanIn Bunkyu 2 (1862), under financial pressure and the anti-shogunal movement, the shogunate reduced tozama daimyo attendance from once a year to once every three years in the Bunkyu Reforms, effectively collapsing the system. With the abolition of domains and establishment of prefectures in the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the bakuhan system ended and sankin-kōtai passed definitively into history.