was the twenty-fourth of the sixty-nine stations

69 Stations of the Nakasendo

The are the rest areas along the Nakasendō, which ran from Nihonbashi in Edo to Sanjō Ōhashi in Kyoto. The route stretched approximately and was an alternate trade route to the Tōkaidō.-Stations of the Nakasendō:...

 of the Nakasendō

Nakasendo

The , also called the , was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo to Kyoto in Japan. There were 69 stations between Edo and Kyoto, crossing through Musashi, Kōzuke, Shinano, Mino and Ōmi provinces...

. It is located in the present-day city of Saku

Saku, Nagano

is a city located in Nagano, Japan.Due to the refounding of Saku back on April 1, 2005, the city became the fifth city in Nagano Prefecture to go over 100,000...

, in Nagano Prefecture

Nagano Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of the island of Honshū. The capital is the city of Nagano.- History :Nagano was formerly known as the province of Shinano...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

History

Yawata-shuku is located on the west bank of the Shinano River

Shinano River

The Shinano River is the longest and largest river in Japan. It flows from Nagano Prefecture to Niigata Prefecture. It is called the Chikuma River in Nagano Prefecture....

, just across from Shionada-shuku

Shionada-shuku

was the twenty-third of the sixty-nine stations of the Nakasendō. It is located in the present-day city of Saku, in Nagano Prefecture, Japan.-History:Shionada-shuku is located on the eastern bank of the Shinano River, just across from Yawata-shuku...

, the preceding post town. Though these two post towns are located not much more than 500 meters away, Yawata-shuku was able to develop during the Keichō era

Keicho

was a after Bunroku and before Genna. This period spanned from October 1596 to July 1615. The reigning emperors were and .-Change of era:* 1596 : The era name was changed to Keichō to mark the passing of various natural disasters...

 in the early Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

. It was a comparatively small post town, but its prosperity came from it serving as a rest area at times when the Shinano River could not be crossed and as a distribution center for rice.