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In Japan, the size of a room is usually measured in relation to the size of tatami mats (-畳, -jō), about 1.653 m 2 (17.79 sq ft) for a standard Nagoya-size tatami. Alternatively, in terms of traditional Japanese area units , room area (and especially house floor area) is measured in terms of tsubo , where one tsubo is the area of two tatami ...
The measurement refers to the traditional size of a Japanese flooring mat called a Tatami mat (made of woven dried grass) which were positioned to completely cover the floor of traditional Japanese homes, therefore it became a convenient measurement tool as mat area was standardised hundreds of years ago.
In Japan, a traditional reed mat is the tatami (畳). Tatami are covered with a weft-faced weave of soft rush ( 藺草 , igusa ) ( common rush ), on a warp of hemp or weaker cotton. There are four warps per weft shed , two at each end (or sometimes two per shed, one at each end, to cut costs).
Area floored with 8 tatami mats (4 tsubo, or 8 jō) The base unit of Japanese area is the tsubo, equivalent to a square ken or 36 square shaku. It is twice the size of the jō, the area of the Nagoya tatami mat. Both units are used informally in discussing real estate floorspace. [20]
In the 1980s, a new home in Japan cost 5-8 times the annual income of the average Japanese, and 2-3 times that of an average American. [9] The typical loan term for Japanese homes was 20 years, with a 35% down payment, while in the United States it was 30 years and 25%, due to differing practices in their financial markets.
The size of a washitsu is measured by the number of tatami mats, using the counter word jō (畳), which, depending on the area, are between 1.5 m 2 and 1.8 m 2. (See tatami.) Typical room sizes are six or eight tatami mats in a private home. There are also half-sized mats, as in a 4.5-tatami room.
Futons are traditionally laid on tatami rush mats, [7] which are resilient and can absorb and re-release up to half a liter of moisture each. [9] Tatamis measure 1 by 0.5 ken, just under 1 by 2 meters, [10] the same size as a Western twin bed. A traditional shikibuton is also about the size of a Western twin bed.
The unit was born out of the necessity to measure land surface to calculate taxes. At the time of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (16th century), the ken was about 1.97 m (6.5 ft), but around 1650 the Tokugawa shogunate reduced it to 1.818 m (5.96 ft) specifically to increase taxes. After the Edo period, the ken started to be called kyōma (京間). [1] [2]