37 kilometers of trees: Nikko Cedar Alley - a special natural monument of Japan

The Japanese town of Nikko is not familiar to all travelers, but it is very colorful. There is a special attraction here - an ancient alley of cedars, which the Japanese have been cherishing for several centuries.

The length of the unique street is 37 kilometers, this is the longest alley of trees on the planet, as there is information in the Guinness Book of Records. It consists of 13 thousand cedars, and many of them have been standing here for centuries.

Today the alley is about four hundred years old. Trees were planted in the first quarter of the 17th century during the construction of the Toshogu Shinto shrine. About 200 thousand cedars were planted at that time, but most of them were destroyed by massive deforestation, road construction, and also died due to poor ecology.

During the reign of the Japanese Tokugawa clan (1603-1868), which was called the Edo period, Nikko was carefully looked after for a cedar alley. The villages that were located near the street had to keep it clean and regularly repair roads. The forest itself was also checked: if cedars were found wilted or uprooted by a strong wind among the trees, they urgently informed the Nikko authorities about this. After that, seedlings appeared on the site of the dead tree, so that the forest was safe and sound for many decades. However, when Emperor Meiji came to power (in 1868), the whole country began to actively build up. Thousands of trees were cut down so that roads appeared in their place. They had to reconstruct the cedar alley, but still some of the trees were preserved.