( ja, 藩, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the

estate Estate or The Estate may refer to: Law * Estate (law), a term in common law for a person's property, entitlements and obligations * Estates of the realm, a broad social category in the histories of certain countries. ** The Estates, representat ...

of a daimyo in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

(1603–1868) and early Meiji period (1868–1912). Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)
"Han"
in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 283. or (daimyo domain) served as a system of ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

administrative division Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

s of Japan alongside the ''

de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legall ...

'' provinces until they were abolished in the 1870s.

History

Pre-Edo period

The concept of originated as the personal

s of prominent warriors after the rise of the Kamakura Shogunate in 1185, which also saw the rise of

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...

and the

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of History of Japan#Medieval Japan (1185–1573/1600), medieval and Edo period, early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retai ...

noble warrior class in Japan. This situation existed for 400 years during the Kamakura Shogunate (1185–1333), the brief Kenmu Restoration (1333–1336), and the

Ashikaga Shogunate The , also known as the , was the feudal military government of Japan during the Muromachi period from 1336 to 1573.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Muromachi-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 669. The Ashikaga shogunate was establis ...

(1336–1573). became increasingly important as ''

s as subsequent Shoguns stripped the Imperial provinces () and their officials of their legal powers.

Edo period

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the preeminent warlord of the late

Sengoku period The was a period in Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the feudal system of Japan under the Ashikaga shogunate. Variou ...

(1467–1603), caused a transformation of the system during his reforms of the feudal structure of Japan. Hideyoshi's system saw the become an abstraction based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields, rather than delineated territory. Hideyoshi died in 1598 and his young son Toyotomi Hideyori was displaced by Tokugawa Ieyasu after the Battle of Sekigahara in October 1600, but his new feudal system was maintained after Ieyasu established the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in ...

in 1603. The belonged to daimyo, the powerful samurai feudal lords, who governed them as personal property with autonomy as a vassal of the Tokugawa

Shogun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

. Ieyasu's successors further refined the system by introducing methods that ensured control of the daimyo and the imperial court. For instance, relatives and retainers were placed politically and militarily strategic districts while potentially hostile daimyo were transferred to unimportant geographic locations or their estates confiscated. They were also occupied with public works that kept them financially drained as the daimyo paid for the bakufu projects. Unlike Western feudalism, the value of a Japanese feudal domain was now defined in terms of projected annual income rather than geographic size. were valued for taxation using the system which determined value based on output of rice in , a Japanese unit of volume considered enough rice to feed one person for one year. A daimyo was determined by the Tokugawa as a lord heading a assessed at 10,000 (50,000 bushels) or more, and the output of their contributed to their prestige or how their wealth were assessed. Early Japanologists such as

Georges Appert Georges Appert (1850–1934) was a French historian, academic, writer and Japanologist. He was a legal scholar and professor of law at the University of Tokyo.Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BnF)Appert, Georges (1850-1934) retrieved 2013-4-2. C ...

and Edmond Papinot made a point of highlighting the annual yields which were allocated for the Shimazu clan at

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...

since the 12th century. The Shogunal and the Imperial provinces served as complementary systems which often worked in tandem for administration. When the Shogun ordered the daimyos to make a

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

of their people or to make maps, the work was organized along the borders of the provinces. As a result, a could overlap multiple provinces which themselves contained sections of multiple . In 1690, the richest was the

Kaga Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1583 to 1871.

, located in the provinces of Kaga, Etchū and Noto, with slightly over 1 million . Totman, Conrad (1993)
''Early Modern Japan''
p. 119.

Meiji period

In 1868, the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown in the Meiji Restoration by a coalition of pro-

Imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texas ...

samurai in reaction to the . One of the main driving forces of the anti-Tokugawa movement was support for

modernization Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...

and Westernization in Japan. From 1869 to 1871, the new Meiji government sought to abolish feudalism in Japan, and the title of daimyo in the system was altered to or . In 1871, almost all of the domains were disbanded and replaced with a new Meiji system of prefectures which were directly subordinate to the

national government A national government is the government of a nation. National government or National Government may also refer to: * Central government in a unitary state, or a country that does not give significant power to regional divisions * Federal governme ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. However, in 1872, the Meiji government created the Ryukyu Domain after Japan formally annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom, a

vassal state A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back to ...

of the Shimazu clan of Satsuma since 1609.Matsumura, Wendy. (2007)
''Becoming Okinawan: Japanese Capitalism and Changing Representations of Okinawa'', p. 38
The Ryūkyū Domain was governed as a headed by the

Ryukyuan monarchy The Ryukyu Islands are a volcanic arc archipelago. Ryukyu may also refer to: * Kingdom of Ryukyu, a former kingdom annexed by the Empire of Japan * Ryukyuan languages * Ryukyuan people * Ryukyu (My Hero Academia), a character in the manga ser ...

until it was finally abolished and became

Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city o ...

in March 1879.

Notes

References

* Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005)
''Japan encyclopedia''.
Cambridge:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the reti ...