cases, as cities increasingly became trade centers, they abandoned their castles and relocated their government base in Jin'ya. The population of a Jōkamachi, of which nearly 300 existed, is varied. There are large-sized Jōkamachi such as Kanazawa and Sendai with approximately 120,000 residents, samurai and merchants combined, while there are small-sized Jōkamachi like Kameda in the Tohoku area with around 4,000 people. In many cases, the population is somewhere around 10,000. Urban structure The design of a Jōkamachi aimed to stimulate commerce by reworking the closest main road to pass through the city so that traffic occurs within the Jōka. The main road passed through the front of the castle rather than the back to demonstrate the power of the authority, regardless of geographical concerns that might exist. Jōkamachi incorporated various ideas to strengthen the city's defense. To prevent invasions, it cleverly used rivers and other terrains, dug moats, built earth mounds and stone walls, and sometimes constructed heavy gateways like Masugata gates if the city was deemed strategically important. Inside the Jōka, houses were tightly located on either side of the main street to make it harder to directly view the castle, and roads were cranked or had dead ends to elongate the route to the castle. Smaller sections of the city built fences and wooden gates, shutting them at night with guards to ward off intruders. Moats were also used as canals and played a large role in distribution of goods. These cities tended to exist around river terraces in eastern Japan and deltas facing the ocean in western Japan, while cities like Hikone, Zeze, and Suwa are adjacent to a lake as part of the "lake type" Jōkamachi. Within a Jōkamachi, smaller districts like Samurai-machi, Ashigaru-machi, Chōnin, and Tera-machi surrounded the castle. A Samurai-machi is a district for samurai's compounds also known as Samurai-yashiki. In principle, higher-ranked vassals owned a compound closer to the castle. Modern towns with names like Sange, Kamiyashiki-machi, Shitayashiki-machi are descendants of Samurai-machi. People at a lower status like Ashigaru were often forced to live at the outer rim of Chōnin districts. Today, towns with names like Banchō, Yuminochō, and Teppochō tend to be what were originally Ashigaru-machi. Chōnin-chi (Chonin district) is a district that lay outside Samurai-machi for merchants and craftsmen. Villagers who lived near the Jokamachi resided in Chonin-chi when they moved in. Merchants and craftsmen were allocated according to their