京橋

About this photo

This photograph shows Kyo Bridge over the Asahi River, which flows through the center of Okayama City. It appears in Nihon no Meisho (Famous Sights of Japan), published in 1900 (Meiji 33). It shows the bridge before it was replaced by the present one in 1917 (Taisho 6).

Kyo Bridge was built in 1593 by Ukita Hideie, who built Okayama Castle, to bring the San'yodo highway through the castle town. It was rebuilt many times in the Edo period, and the area at the foot of the bridge was a port for takasebune, flat-bottomed boats that plied the Asahi River, bustling with wholesalers and markets. The takasebune gradually disappeared after the railways came in the Meiji era.

The present bridge, completed in 1917, is an iron girder bridge. It is said to be one of the oldest large girder bridges with steel-pipe columns as piers, and in 2000 the Japan Society of Civil Engineers selected it as a Civil Engineering Heritage site. Streetcars still run across the bridge, and the Kyobashi Morning Market is held at its foot every month.

Glossary