The appearance of traditional villages and structures in Ryukyu : The Case of Kouri Island

摘要

The Kouri Island villages have a long history dating from the times of the Ryukyu kings. Due to their characteristic of being on a remote island even today they have a traditional village appearance. This paper looks at their traditionalhouse appearances and village layouts, and analyzes the special features of the appearances of the villages and the appearances that are traditional for this geography by studying the makeup and structure of each house and the distribution of the kinds of building-lot layouts in the villages. The houses tended to be always one-storied with additional attached subhousing. Many of the houses were protected from strong winds by a walled compound and yphoon blocking trees. The distribution of the walled compounds was uneven and had a strong relationship with the location of sacred spots. This case study shows that the site location of sacred spots and the shape of the housing had a mutually strong effect on each other. When the kinds of building-lot layouts is looked at, the western and eastern parts of the villages have mostly mixed layout types while the central section usually has building lots lined up in a single row. This distribution shows that even inside the village the western side is older. This fact is confirmed by the fact that old roads that twist and criss-cross are also concentrated on the western side. This research made clear the fact that Kouri Island still keeps the appearances of traditional villages. From now on, we strongly hope that the preservation and maintenance of traditional village appearance is done in parallel with the development of tourist attractions.