Suzuka

Suzuka belongs to northern Ise, where routes between the plains of central Japan and the approaches to Kyoto crossed a landscape of cultivated land and mountain barriers. The Suzuka mountains and their passes gave movement a focused geography. Farms supplied travellers and nearby settlements, while roads helped connect local markets with much larger circuits of exchange. Religious travel also mattered because Ise's shrines drew pilgrims from across Japan.

Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the Tokaido highway had post stations at Ishiyakushi and Shono in the area of present-day Suzuka. Shono was the forty-fifth station on the road from Edo. The Ise road branched off in the wider area, drawing travelers toward the shrines as well as along the main highway.