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Bird's-eye view map of Osaka's Nakanoshima, 1924

Osaka 1924
The Art of Looking Down

Artist Seijiro Minobe
Publisher Warajiya
Medium Lithograph
Period Taisho
Location Osaka
Image No. 211205-0036
Purchase Digital File
Author

After Japan’s first powered airplane flight in 1910, the country saw a boom in stunning bird’s-eye view maps. This essay explores a masterpiece of this genre, a 1924 map of Osaka.

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Japan has a long and rich tradition of bird’s-eye view art.1 As early as the Heian period (794–1185), illustrated emaki scrolls of The Tale of Genji (源氏物語, Genji Monogatari) employed elevated perspectives to depict indoor scenes and architectural layouts.

Between the 1500s and 1700s, elaborate byōbu folding screens portrayed Kyoto from high above, capturing the city in dazzling detail. These works are known as rakuchū rakugai-zu (洛中洛外図), or “scenes in and around the capital.”

Folding screens depicting Scenes in and around the Capital, 17th century
Byobu folding screens with a bird's-eye view of Kyoto, 17th century. Scenes in and around the Capital; folding screens; ink, color, gold, and gold leaf on paper; 2015.300.106.1, .2; The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

During the Edo period (1603–1868), bird’s-eye perspectives continued to flourish, particularly in woodblock prints. One of the most ambitious examples is Tōkaidō Meisho Ichiran (東海道名所一覧, The Famous Places of the Tōkaidō Road in One View), created in 1818 (Bunsei 1) by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎, 1760–1849). It presents the famed coastal route in a sweeping, unified panorama.

Tokaido Meisho Ichiran by Katsushika Hokusai, 1818
Tokaido Meisho Ichiran by Katsushika Hokusai, 1818. Woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 1939.1107, Art Institute Chicago.
Bird's-eye views in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1850s
Woodblock printed bird's-eye views in One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (名所江戸百景, Meisho Edo Hyakkei), 1856–1857. The series was created by ukiyoe artist Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重, 1797–1858). Woodblock print, ink and color on paper.

The rise of aviation and a booming domestic tourism industry in the early 20th century gave birth to a new genre of bird’s-eye view art: colorful modern maps, grounded in realism.

Among the pioneers was Hatsusaburō Yoshida (吉田 初三郎, 1884–1955), a prolific cartographer and artist. He painted his first bird’s-eye view map — a guide for the Keihan Electric Railway — in 1914 (Taishō 3). By the time of his death in 1955 (Shōwa 30), he had produced over 2,000 such maps.

Hatsusaburo Yoshida bird’s-eye view map of Kansai, 1926
Hatsusaburo Yoshida bird’s-eye view map of Kansai, published by Osaka Mainichi Shinbun on April 5, 1926. Lithograph, ink and color on paper.

Osaka Panorama Map

Amid this cartographic explosion, one particular work stands out: a 1924 (Taishō 13) bird’s-eye map of Osaka, drawn by an otherwise obscure artist. Exceptional in both execution and historical value, the map captures the city in the throes of modernization, industrialization, and explosive growth.

Bird's-eye view map of Osaka's Nakanoshima, 1924
Detail of Osaka Panorama Map (大阪市パノラマ地図, Osakashi Panorama Chizu), published in 1924. Seijiro Minobe, lithograph, ink and color on paper.

It preserves Osaka at a pivotal moment, precariously straddling past and future. Streetcars — launched in 1903 (Meiji 36) — signal progress, yet water transport and narrow roads still linger. Western-style buildings stand next to traditional townhouses, while factory chimneys loom along the city’s fringes.

Four months before the map’s publication, Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by the Great Kantō Earthquake, forcing the industrial city of Osaka and the nearby port city of Kobe to take over the two cities’ main economic functions, while taking in large numbers of displaced people.

Just one year after this map was published, Osaka absorbed 44 surrounding towns and villages and named itself Greater Osaka (大大阪, Dai Osaka). With a population of 2.1 million, up from just 272,000 in 1873 (Meiji 6), it had become Japan’s most populous city. As a leading commercial hub in Asia, it stood on the global stage.2

These monumental transformations took place under the leadership of Osaka’s visionary mayor, Hajime Seki (關 一, 1873–1935). As Osaka’s mayor from 1923 through 1935 (Showa 10), Seki was instrumental in the construction of ports, railways, public markets, a subway system, and city-provided housing. His groundbreaking thirty-year urban development plan aimed to make the “city of smoke” livable again and is still a textbook case for urban planners today.3

Seki is especially famous for the construction of Midōsuji Avenue, the wide main street that connects Umeda in the city’s north with Namba in the south. On this map it does not yet exist.

The Mock Painted Picture of the Great Osaka, a bird's-eye view map of Osaka City published in 1924
Bird's-eye view map of Osaka City published in 1924. Seijiro Minobe, 大阪市パノラマ地図 (Osakashi Panorama Chizu) The Mock Painted Picture of the Great Osaka, lithograph, ink and color on paper.

This invaluable map is surprisingly rare. In the United States, it is held only by UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago. Even in Japan only five libraries list it in their collection. The Duits Collection is extremely fortunate to have two original editions: the standard version (shown above), and a promotional variant. Each measures an impressive 79 by 109 centimeters (31 by 43 inches).

The map’s introduction — printed in the top-right corner — notes the immense effort that was required to accurately capture Osaka’s essence and describes the map as “a modern and unprecedentedly important reference.”

Each significant building is named or specially marked, clearly distinguishing it and making it easy for anyone to recognize at a glance. … Even the old city center and the new urban areas (such as the eastern port area), as well as the city’s outskirts and narrow alleyways, have been portrayed with minimal omissions or errors. Therefore, it is to be hoped that viewers will appreciate this as a precise and nearly complete representation of Osaka as it currently stands.

The map is incredibly detailed, marking public facilities like schools, post offices, neighborhood police stations (kōban), and bathhouses (sentō), as well as temples, shrines, department stores, and even individual streetcar stops, cleverly illustrated with a streetcar for each stop. The precision is striking – at intersections there are four streetcars, each indicating a stop for a different direction.

1924 map of Osaka with public facilities highlighted.
1. Streetcar stops (the orange label shows the name of the stop); 2. Sentō public bath (ゆ); 3. School (文); 4. Kōban police station (交).

The postcard below shows what the intersection highlighted on the map looked like in real life. Some buildings in the photo can be easily recognized on the map. The wide avenue is Sakaisuji, then Osaka’s main street with a busy streetcar line and four department stores. The photographer stood on the roof of one of them.

Nagahoribashi intersection and Sakaisuji in Osaka, 1920s
Nagahoribashi, Osaka, 1920s. Photographed from the roof of Takashimaya Department Store. Unattributed, gelatin silver print on postcard stock.

The map’s ingenious design offers valuable insight, as illustrated in the close-up below of the Shinsaibashi shopping district. To enhance clarity, I have added color-coded circles. Note the surprisingly large number of kōban (green), sentō (red), and schools (blue). This reveals a dense urban fabric.

1924 map of Osaka's Shinsaibashi with public facilities marked
Kōban (police station) Sentō (bathhouse) School Temple Theater / 1. Shinsaibashi Bridge spanning the Nagahori canal; 2. Daimaru Department Store (built in 1922) along Shinsaibashi-suji shopping street; 3. Takashimaya Department Store (opened in 1922) on Sakaisuji; 4. Ebisubashi Bridge across the Dōtonbori canal.

For years, I wondered how I could convey the map’s artistry and significance. That question was unexpectedly answered when I recently acquired aerial photos of Osaka from the same era. Many of the photographed buildings are illustrated on the map, underscoring the creator’s meticulous attention to detail.

I already had street-level photos from this period. Juxtaposing these two sets of images with sections of the map reveals not only its technical craftsmanship, but also Osaka’s dramatic transformation during this era.

This is especially apparent on and around Nakanoshima, the city’s administrative and commercial heart. The next article explores this section of the map by pairing it up with stunning vintage aerial and street-level photos.

Continue to Nakanoshima: Small Island, Big Dreams.

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Nakanoshima, Osaka’s administrative and commercial heart, 1924
Nakanoshima is a 3 km long sandbank that divides the Kyū-Yodo-gawa River into the Tosabori-gawa and Dōjima-gawa rivers.

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Notes

Bird’s-eye view maps are known as chokanzu (鳥瞰図) in Japanese.

1 Recommended reading: Rodgers, Ken (2021-02-27), The Big Picture: Birds’-eye Overviews of the Japanese Archipelago, Kyoto Journal.

2 日本地誌提要 第1冊. 日報社 (1875).

When Osaka City was officially established as a municipality in 1889 (Meiji 22), it measured a mere 15 square kilometers (6 sq mi), one-fourteenth of its current size. Some 40 square kilometers (15 sq mi) were added in 1897 (Meiji 30), but the 1925 enlargement added a whopping 126 square kilometers (49 sq mi). 近代・現代の大阪, 大阪市立図書館. Retrieved on 2025-04-18.

In 1932 (Showa 7), Tokyo became Japan’s largest city by population.

3 Perez, Joan; Araldi, Alessandro; Fusco, Giovanni; Fuse, Takashi (2019). The Character of Urban Japan: Overview of Osaka-Kobe’s Cityscapes. Urban Science. 3. 105. pp. 6.

Seki was also deputy mayor from 1914 through 1923. Unfortunately, many of Seki’s ambitious plans to make Osaka livable failed as he lost his battles with greedy property developers. I highly recommend reading The City as Subject: Seki Hajime and the Reinvention of Modern Osaka by Jeffrey E. Hanes, published in 2002 by University of California Press.

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Reference for Citations

Duits, Kjeld (). Osaka 1924: The Art of Looking Down, OLD PHOTOS of JAPAN. Retrieved on October 1, 2025 (GMT) from https://www.oldphotosjapan.com/photos/958/the-art-of-looking-down-1924-birds-eye-view-map-of-osaka

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Comment

It’s interesting that although Osaka was rapidly developing it was not as eagerly photographed as other cities like Yokohama, Kyoto or Nagasaki. I’ve seen only two photographs featuring bird’s-eye view of Osaka – the rest were bridges, Dotonbori street and the castle.

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(Author)

@Noel: I have a fair number of bird’s-eye views of Osaka from the 1920s, but a lot probably got lost during WWII firebombing.

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I was thinking more like 1880s and 1890s, because stepping into Taishō is like entering another world.

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(Author)

@Noel: Yes, in that case you are absolutely right. Bird’s-eye view photographs from before the era of powered aviation are exceedingly rare. Some shots were made from balloons, others from mountains. But there were few balloons and no mountains in Osaka.

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