Matsumoto City’s Shiga District, where Honjin is located, prospered as a major transportation hub on the Tosan Road, which was already in use by the 8th century. In the Edo period, it was home to three lodging towns, with the Zenkoji and Edo Roads also passing through the area.
Edo Road refers to Hofukuji Road, the route used by Matsumoto clan feudal lord in their commute from Matsumoto to Edo via the Hofukuji Pass and the Urano-shuku lodging district in Ueda. The Hofukuji Road was also a logistics hub, believed to have been the largest in the clan for transporting tribute rice to Edo.
Honjin’s Ozawa family owned vast amounts of farmland and numerous rice-filled warehouses. It is believed that “the price of the rice depends on when the warehouse of the Ozawa family opens,” which offers a glimpse into the extent of this family’s impact on the local economy at that time. The Ozawa family’s Honjin residence, centrally located in the old Hofukuji-shuku on the Edo Road, served as a rest house for the daimyo during their sankin-kotai commute.

Shiga was also unique in that it was under the direct control of the Ise Shrine in medieval times and the Tokugawa Shogunate in the Edo period, thus developing its own cultural sphere.
Under direct shogunate control, Shiga was spared from the scourge of the Meiji-era anti-Buddhist movement in the late 19th century, when many temples were destroyed in other parts of the Matsumoto clan. With many of its medieval Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines intact, Shiga has a historic and picturesque townscape. Former lodging towns (Hofukuji-shuku, Kariyahara-shuku, and Aida-shuku) have also retained their traditional atmosphere and are noteworthy heritage tourism resources.