Shizuoka City 静岡市

Shizuoka, the castle city – Sunpu castle – of almost 670,000 inhabitants, is located between Tôkyô and Nagoya and is the administrative center of the prefecture of the same name. Today, the city is the center of the Japanese tea trade. Shizuoka is a former post station on the Tôkaidô overland road and around 1570 the headquarters and later the retirement residence of Shôgun TOKUGAWA Ieyasu. There is evidence of settlements in this area as early as the “Yayoi period” (generally accepted to date from 300 BC to 300 AD)