Heian-kyo ̄: from royal center to metropolenon- agrarian specialists who rely on others for provisions; use of tithes or taxes from agricultural
producers to support the ruler; the existence of monumental buildings as well as workshops,
warehouses, and granaries that evidence surplus production and labor; elite support for special-
ists, who benefit the ruled in terms of planning and organization; literacy and record- keeping,
enabling clerks to develop predictive sciences such as arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy;
craftsmen and artists supported by surplus and thus able to develop sophisticated styles; regular
foreign trade in raw materials over long distances; and settled craftsmen serving the ruler.^2
Notably these criteria go beyond Max Weber’s well known emphasis on the city as a market
center, Gideon Sjoberg’s focus on the city as the ruler’s center, and Harold Carter’s vision of the
city as religious center.^3 Smith and her colleagues, building on Childe’s work, argue for broad
and multifaceted study of global urban history.
Satō Makoto argues that a regional perspective is important too. Specifically, Japan’s earliest
cities were royal capitals that were strongly influenced by Chinese royal centers where the Son of
Heaven established his palace, managed administration, and provided ritual and cultural leader-
ship for the realm known as “All Under Heaven.” Japan’s capital builders began working from
this template in the late seventh century, first at Fujiwara (694–710), and then at Heijō (710–784),
Nagaoka (784–794), and Heian (794–1868).
Satō, like Smith and her colleagues, argues against a narrow definition of urban function:
It used to be that Japan’s classical cities were imagined as assemblages of aristocratic resi-
dences without any developed economic base or autonomous populations. It was even
thought that they could not be considered cities at all. But since the 1960s, as the excava-
tion of Heijō (Nara) proceeded, a clearer and more detailed picture emerged. Indeed,
there are few classical cities for which our archaeological knowledge is as great. Its resi-
dents lived in the midst of a very large population, an agglomeration of wealth, special-
ization of labor, and a developed circulating economy. That Heijō should be considered
a classical city (kodai toshi) is now accepted. Still we need to understand and articulate its
shape and role as an East Asian city. Residents may not have had an independent economy
and its craftsmen and merchants were not fully independent from political and religious
institutions. ... Given that, I want to think about how we can talk about an “East Asian
classical city.”^4In a similar vein, the East Asian architectural historian Chye Kiang Heng has proposed what he
calls “a new urban paradigm” for the East Asian region. He argues for a trajectory of urban devel-
opment that proceeds this way. The Tang capital of Changan (today’s Xian) in northwestern
China was a rigorously controlled aristocratic city with walled wards and numerous symbolic
elements—it was what he calls a “closed capital city” during the seventh and early eighth centu-
ries. By the tenth century, however, the Song- dynasty capital at Kaifeng had become an “open
capital city” that was street- centered, mercantile, and less controlled by government authorities.
Important for the discussion here, Heng thinks that this trajectory from closed to more open
cities can be seen elsewhere across East Asia, including in Japan.^5 I have found Heng’s paradigm
suggestive for tracing developments in Heian- kyō during Heian times.
Kyoto in Japan’s urban tradition
The archaeologist Yamanaka Akira has articulated a five- stage model for Japan’s royal capitals
from the seventh through the twelfth centuries. It puts Kyoto’s history in context and suggests
long- term trajectories of its urban development.^6