The new ordering on the contents page grouped the prints according to the 8 travel routes in Old Japan.

Hiroshige based many of his designs on old Japanese guidebooks called meishō zue.

In particular, at least 26 of the designs are believed to have been based on drawings from the 8 volume series of guidebooks called Sansui Kikan (Exceptional Mountain and Water Landscapes) written and illustrated by Fuchigami Kyokkō (淵上旭江) (1753–1816) published by Yanagihara Kihei from 1800–1802.

[1] A deluxe edition featuring bokashi—additional overprinting to enrich the design—was produced as an initial run to publicize the series.

Subsequent print runs tended to limit or eliminate the overprinting which was relatively costly to produce.

This was the first time such a format had been used in a major Japanese landscape print series.

A likely reason for Hiroshige's choice was that rather than travel to the actual locations, he based many of his designs on Meisho Zue guidebooks which used a vertical, rather than horizontal, format.

It is also speculated by scholars that a vertical format would have been a strong marketing ploy at the time and a better binding of such a large number of prints.

The print designs document a world that was about to change: A few months after the first prints were published the Black Ships that contributed to the opening of Japan arrived and just over a decade after the completion of the series, in 1872, the Meiji Restoration would rewrite the provincial boundaries that had existed since 824AD.