In the same Japan? The mystery of the difference of tatami size by region

When someone asks you
“how big is your living room?”
what would you answer?

In Japan, many people will respond by using tatami as unit such as “12 tatamis”.
Using tatami as a unit to describe the size of the room is familiar in Japan and it is often used for renting room or building new house.

However, do you know that the size of tatami is different by the region?
To say it simple, in the west, the tatami is large and in the east, it’s smaller. Why such difference occurred?

There are several hypotheses: the policymaker of Edo period changed the standard in order to gain more render; the difference of whether the house was built based on the size of tatami or the distance between the pillars became the size of tatami.

The difference of tatami which works as the unit to describe the size of Japanese houses. Isn’t it interesting?

Tags:tatami size difference Japan