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rickshaw
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Tokyo: rickshaw Hand-pulled rickshaw drivers sit and rest in the shade beside their rickshaws on a street in Calcutta, India, in front of a red brick building during a hot summer day. pedicab ricksha
Quick Facts
Also spelled:
ricksha
Also called:
jinrikisha or jinrickshaw
Related Topics:
pedicab
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Tokyo: rickshaw
Tokyo: rickshaw Rickshaw in service, Tokyo.

rickshaw

vehicle
Also known as: jinrickshaw, jinrikisha, ricksha
Written and fact-checked by
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History
Kolkata, India: rickshaw drivers
1 of 2
Kolkata, India: rickshaw driversRickshaw drivers in Kolkata, India, resting between fares during the intense heat wave in South Asia in 2015.
pedicab
2 of 2
pedicabPedicab in Thailand.

rickshaw, (from Japanese: “human-powered vehicle”), two-wheeled vehicle with a doorless, chairlike body and a collapsible hood, which holds one or two passengers and is drawn by a man between two shafts. It was used widely in the Orient but was largely superseded by the pedicab, a rickshaw driven by bicycle.

ricksha
rickshaRicksha, c. 1875; in the Tyrwhitt-Drake Museum of Carriages, Maidstone, Kent, England.

The name of its inventor remains uncertain, but it was first used in Japan in the 19th century and is similar to the old French brouette. Many were built in the United States for export by the American carriage builder James H. Birch of Burlington, New Jersey.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Robert Lewis.