One door open
Open the map in 1700 and zoom in on Nagasaki Bay. The Dutch traders had to live on Dejima, a small artificial island here. Why would the shogunate keep foreigners on an island?
Open this view on the mapTokugawa Japan · 1633-1800
Edo Japan: a closed country?
From the 1630s the Tokugawa shoguns banned Christianity, expelled the Portuguese and kept the Dutch on a tiny island at Nagasaki. Students test the idea of a "closed country" on the map, and explore Edo, a city of about a million people.
- Length
- 50 minutes
- Ages
- 12–15
- On the map
- 3 steps, AD 1700 to AD 1689
- Live lesson
- 7 rounds, 3 on the map
- Worksheet
- Two A4 pages, with Classroom
- You need
- A projector; phones for live
Live lesson · new in Classroom
Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.
Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.
€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.
- 7 rounds
- 3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
- About 15 minutes
- Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
- A report
- Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
Introduction
5 minRead aloud
From the 1630s the Tokugawa shoguns banned Christianity, expelled the Portuguese and kept the Dutch on a tiny island at Nagasaki. Students test the idea of a "closed country" on the map, and explore Edo, a city of about a million people.
By the end of the lesson, students can
- Explain why the Tokugawa shogunate limited contact with Europeans after 1633.
- Locate the four places through which Japan kept contact with the outside world.
- Describe life in Edo and the growth of Japanese culture during the long peace.
Explore the map
15 minProject the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.
Four gates
Zoom out and find Tsushima (towards Korea), the Ryukyu islands to the south and the Ainu lands on Hokkaido. Japan kept trading with neighbours through these places. Was Japan really closed?
Open this view on the mapBasho's road north
In 1689 the poet Matsuo Basho set out from Edo on a long walk through northern Honshu. Pan from Edo to the north. What kind of landscape would he have seen?
Open this view on the mapClass discussion
15 minPick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.
- Why did the shogunate fear Christianity and European priests?
- Japan traded through Nagasaki, Tsushima, Satsuma and Matsumae. Does that change the idea of a closed country?
- Edo grew to about a million people. What made such a big city possible without trains or cars?
- Japanese scholars learned Western medicine from Dutch books. Why would a country that limited contact still want foreign knowledge?
- What do you think Japan gained and lost from two centuries of strict limits on foreign contact?
Game round
10 minPlay Rule History as Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the shogunate whose grandson closed Japan's ports. Let students take turns ruling. Discuss: would Ieyasu, who welcomed Dutch and English traders, have agreed with the closing of the country?
Open Rule HistoryWorksheet
5 minThis worksheet comes with Classroom
€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.