Japan Heritage story
Gyoda: the town of tabi storehouses
和装文化の足元を支え続ける足袋蔵のまち行田
Gyoda in Saitama has made tabi, the split-toe socks worn with kimono, for about 300 years, and at its peak made about 80% of Japan's supply. Its back streets are lined with storehouses built to hold them.
Key facts
- Theme
- Castles, Textiles and dyes, Food and sake
- Era
- Edo
- Region
- Hokkaido, Kanto, Kansai
- Official name in Japanese
- 和装文化の足元を支え続ける足袋蔵のまち行田
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 埼玉県（行田市）
The story
Between the Tone and Arakawa rivers, sandy soil and hot summers suited cotton and indigo, and Gyoda's sewing skills turned the cloth into tabi. Production began in the early 1700s, by legend as a side job for samurai wives of the Oshi domain, and by the 1830s there were 27 tabi shops in town. In the modern era, sewing machines and factory booms pushed Gyoda past every rival until it made about 80% of Japan's tabi.
Finished tabi had to be stored until the autumn shipping season, so merchants built tabigura, tabi storehouses, at the back of their long, narrow plots. Unlike storehouse towns where warehouses face the main street, Gyoda's hide on the back lanes, and they come in earth, stone, brick, mortar, concrete and wood.
What to see
- Tabigura on the back streets: storehouses in many materials, some still with the sound of sewing machines nearby.
- Oshi Castle: the castle that held out against Ishida Mitsunari's flooding siege.Google Maps 忍城 行田市 (opens in a new tab)
- Tabi merchant houses: the shop, courtyard, factory, storehouse and a small Inari shrine in a row on one plot.
Plan your trip with the Saitama prefecture guide and see more castles and history and heritage.
Good to know
- Try zeri-fry, a local okara croquette, and fry, a savoury pancake a bit like okonomiyaki, snacks once loved by factory workers.
- Gyoda is still Japan's top tabi producer, so it's a good place to buy a pair.
- Walk the back streets rather than the main road: that's where the storehouses are.
Questions travellers ask
What are tabi?
Japanese ankle socks with a split between the big toe and the other toes, worn with kimono and sandals.
Why are Gyoda's storehouses on the back streets?
Plots were long and narrow, and tabi factories and storehouses were built in the old back yards once used for horses.
Where it comes from
More heritage stories from the same area
- Aizu's 33 Kannon pilgrimage: faith with a day out
- Asuka: the women who shaped the birth of Japan
- Coal, steel and port: Hokkaido's northern industrial revolution
- Date Masamune's dazzling culture in Sendai and Matsushima
- Esashi: the herring town that outshone Edo
- Hida no Takumi: 1,300 years of master woodworkers in Takayama
- Iga and Koka: in search of the real ninja
- Izumo: the sacred land where the sun sets
- Kamenose: crossing the landslide heart of the Tatsuta Kodo
- Katsuragi Shugen: where mountain asceticism began
- Kitamaebune: the merchant ships that made Japan's port towns rich
- Masuda: a medieval masterpiece of Japan
Local foods from the same area
Crafts from the same area
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.