Tanabu Kaidō

The Tanabu Kaidō was established by the Nanbu clan during the Edo period between Noheji-shukuba and the Buddhist temple and folk religion pilgrimage destination at Mount Osore, a caldera believed in Japanese mythology to be a gate to the underworld,^[2] near the former town of Tanabu (now part of Mutsu). The road was a branch of the longer Ōshū Kaidō (now known as National Route 4) that was located entirely within the northern Morioka Domain.^[1] Pilgrimages along what was to become the road to Mount Osore date back to 862, but its uncertain if the establishment of a maintained road took place before the Nanbu built the Tananbu-kaidō. The Nanbu had a large military camp in Tanabu, so quick movement to the commercial port and border town of Noheji was crucial to the defense of their domain. In the later Edo period, the road gained further defensive significance when foreign ships began to be spotted in the Tsugaru Strait and Mutsu Bay near Shimokita Peninsula. As a result of this, the shogunate ordered the road to be extended to Sai in 1803.^[3] In 1808, the Tokugawa shogunate assigned the Nanbu clan responsibility for the defense of a portion of southern Ezo, further increasing the road's defensive importance to the shogunate and the clan.^[4]

National Route 279 was established by the Cabinet of Japan along the Tananbu Kaidō between Noheji and Ōma in 1970.^[5]

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