LESSON 9.8 How did people use the land?
LEARNING INTENTION By the end of this lesson you should be able to:
• identify Japan’s environmental and land use problems in the seventeenth century • identify the methods adopted by the Tokugawa sh̄oguns to solve these issues.
Tune in As the Japanese population grew, so too did the amount of land needed to grow food. SOURCE1 shows how much land was used over the years as Japan’s population increased. Compare Japan’s population in 1874 (35 million) with Australia’s population today (26 million).
SOURCE1 The growth in Japanese land under cultivation — tenth to nineteenth century
Estimated land under cultivation (hectares)
Year
930
862000 946000
1450 1600 1720 1874
1635000 2970000
3050000 Source: From Professor Shinzaburo Oishi, Edo Jidai ( The Edo Period ), Chuko Shinsho no. 476, 1977
1. Discuss how much land you think is used worldwide to feed Australians. 2. How different do you think it would be to Japan’s use in the past? Why do you think this?
9.8.1 Patterns of land use Japan is made up of many islands with mountainous and forested terrain, leaving only about 30 per cent of its 378 000 square kilometres suitable for farming. Managing this limited land has always been crucial. Rice has been Japan’s main crop and an essential part of its diet. During the Tokugawa sh̄ogunate, over 90 per cent of the population were peasants farming the land, which was owned by daimȳo and samurai families. Peasants paid a ‘rice tax’ to use the land, ensuring their right to farm it.
SkillBuilder discussion Historical questions 1. Why do you think farmers in Japan created rice paddy fields on the sides of mountains? 2. How might terracing help in the cultivation of rice in mountainous regions? 3. What challenges do you think were faced growing rice this way?
SOURCE2 Rice paddy fields are terraced on to the side of mountain slopes.
242 Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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