Anjō — Anjō Map Poster

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Anjō Map Poster

Anjō lies in the Nishimikawa area of central Aichi, on a broad, flat plain between Nagoya and Okazaki. From above, it is one of the most evenly textured maps in the region: a fine grid of residential streets and fields, broken up by rail lines, main roads and the long thin lines of irrigation canals. There are no dramatic hills or coastlines, which lets the pattern of the streets carry the design.

Much of that landscape owes its shape to the Meiji Yōsui, an irrigation canal completed in the late nineteenth century that turned dry upland into productive farmland. Anjō's cooperative, diversified farming in the early twentieth century earned it the nickname Japan's Denmark. Today the city is also closely tied to the automotive industry of the surrounding area, while keeping much of its agricultural ground.

An Anjō map poster shows a city where housing, factories and rice fields sit side by side in a close, regular mesh. The Tōkaidō main line and the Shinkansen cut straight lines across the plain, with Mikawa-Anjō station on the high-speed route. Canals thread through at gentle angles, and in black and white the overall effect is almost like a woven textile.