Tsuboya Yachimun Street

In 1682, under King Sho Tei, the royal government moved three kilns from Chibana in Misato, Takaraguchi in Shuri and Wakuta in Naha to the south of Makishi village, and the new pottery quarter took the name Tsuboya. Its potters made two kinds of ware. Arayachi is unglazed, and it went into big storage jars for awamori and water and into urns for the bones of the dead. Jooyachi carries glazes and painted decoration. The only arayachi kiln left in Tsuboya runs about 20 m up the slope under a red-tile roof, and the prefecture lists it as a tangible cultural property.

The Battle of Okinawa reduced old Naha to ash. Tsuboya on the edge of town escaped with less damage, so its stone-walled lanes survive. On 14 November 1945 an advance party of 140 potters and builders from the internment camps entered Tsuboya, and the first kilns fired that December. Within a month the district had 8,000 people, and Naha's postwar recovery began here. Among those potters was Jiro Kinjo, who later became Okinawa's first Living National Treasure.

The street itself runs about 400 m from the end of the Heiwa-dori arcade, and roughly 20 workshops, shops and galleries line it. The Tsuboya Pottery Museum explains Tsuboya ware on two floors with a film theatre, and it shows pieces by Kinjo and other masters. As Naha grew in the 1970s, smoke from the wood-fired kilns became a problem, and many potters moved their climbing kilns to Yomitan.