Edo was the Japanese city where most ukiyo-e publishing and production was centered during the Edo period.
Edo, now called Tokyo, was the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate and grew into one of the world’s largest cities. Its large, literate, and commercially active population created strong demand for actor portraits, pictures of beautiful women, landscapes, illustrated books, and celebrity images.
Ukiyo-e was produced through a collaborative system involving a publisher, designer, carver, and printer. Many publishers, workshops, theaters, pleasure districts, and customers were concentrated in Edo, making the city the genre’s principal commercial center.
Kyoto and Osaka also had important print cultures, especially in early ukiyo-e and the kamigata-e tradition. That is why “Edo” should not be treated as a synonym for every Japanese woodblock print. In this context, it identifies the city that later became Tokyo.