As the hub of the Gokaido, the five roads radiating from old Edo to major centers around the country, the Nihonbashi district of the capital was long one of its most bustling areas.
Businesses of all kinds, from inns to moneylenders and clothes shops, crowded the narrow streets off the Nihonbashi River, with the last two represented today by the concentration of bank headquarters there and the nearby Mitsukoshi department store, founded as a humble kimono shop.
Nihonbashi, too, was the site of Edo's original fish market, and it was this that spawned what is claimed to be the country's oldest bento shop.