The Tokugawa shogunate formalized the Tokaido road with 53 official post stations (shukuba) between Edo and Kyoto, creating Japan's most important travel corridor and supporting a regular system of messengers, palanquins, and travelers.

The 53 stations of the Tokaido became one of the great subjects of Japanese art and literature; Hiroshige's woodblock prints and Basho's haiku travel journals drew on road culture; the station towns nurtured a thriving culture of travel poetry, inn literature, and popular verse that defined Edo-period literary life.