was a

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, located in Kinai, corresponding to present-day

Nara Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the ...

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric (2005). "Yamato" in . It was also called . Yamato consists of two characters, 大 "great", and 和 " Wa". At first, the name was written with one different character (), but due to its offensive connotation, for about ten years after 737, this was revised to use more desirable characters () (see

Names of Japan The word ''Japan'' is an endonym and exonym, exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by many languages. The Japanese language, Japanese names for Japan are () and (). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji . Since the third ce ...

). The final revision was made in the second year of the Tenpyō-hōji era (). It is classified as a great province in the '' Engishiki''. The Yamato Period in the

history of Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Japanese Paleolithic, Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the fi ...

refers to the late

Kofun Period The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is ...

(c. 250–538) and

Asuka Period The was a period in the history of Japan lasting from 538 to 710, although its beginning could be said to overlap with the preceding Kofun period. The Yamato period, Yamato polity evolved greatly during the Asuka period, which is named after the ...

(538–710). Japanese

archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and historians emphasize the fact that during the early Kofun Period the

Yamato Kingship The was a tribal alliance centered on the Yamato Province, Yamato region (Nara Prefecture) from the 4th century to the 7th century, and ruled over the alliance of Nobility, noble families in the central and western parts of the Japanese archipe ...

was in close contention with other regional powers, such as Kibi Province near present-day

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,826,059 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefecture ...

. Around the 6th century, the local chieftainship gained national control and established the Imperial court in Yamato Province. The

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

, the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, was named after this province.

Capital

During the

Kofun period The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is ...

(300 to 538) and the

Asuka period The was a period in the history of Japan lasting from 538 to 710, although its beginning could be said to overlap with the preceding Kofun period. The Yamato period, Yamato polity evolved greatly during the Asuka period, which is named after the ...

, many palace capitals were located in Kashihara, Asuka, and Sakurai. Yamato was the first central government of the unified country in the

. Heijō-kyō capital was placed in

Nara City is the capital city of Nara Prefecture, Japan. , Nara has an estimated population of 367,353 according to World Population Review, making it the largest city in Nara Prefecture and sixth-largest in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara is a Core ...

during the Nara period. In the 14th century, the capital of the Southern Court was established in Yoshino and Anou.

Temples

The

provincial temple The are Buddhist temples in Japan, Buddhist temples established in each of the provinces of Japan by Emperor Shōmu during the Nara period (710 – 794). The official name for each temple was Konkomyo Shitenno Gokoku-ji (Konkōmyō Shitennō ...

for monks is popularly thought to have been

Tōdai-ji is a Buddhist temple complex that was once one of the powerful Nanto Shichi Daiji, Seven Great Temples, located in the city of Nara, Nara, Nara, Japan. The construction of the temple was an attempt to imitate Chinese temples from the much-admir ...

, but it may have in fact been a different one in Kashihara. The one for nuns was Hokke-ji. The primary shinto shrine was Sakurai's Ōmiwa Shrine, but there have been no records stating as such found at the shrine itself. There were no secondary shrines. The

sōja file:Bitchu Kokubunji, zenkei.jpg, 270px, Bitchū Kokubun-ji is a Cities of Japan, city located in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 69,428 and a population density of 330 persons per km2. The total area of the ...

(or principal Shinto shrine in the province) was Kokufu Shrine (Takatori, Takaichi,

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

''
Kami are the Deity, deities, Divinity, divinities, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the traditional Shinto religion of Japan. ''Kami'' can be elements of the landscape, forc ...
'' of Yamato

* Minamoto no Shigetoki * Minamoto no Suetō * Utsunomiya Nobufusa * Oda Hidanaga * Oda Toshisada * Oda Tatsusada * Oda Tatsukatsu * Mitsuki Naoyori * Honjō Fusanaga * Tōyama Kagetō * Jushii-ge Nakai Masakiyo *Jushii-ge Matsudaira Tomonori *Jushii-ge Matsudaira Naotsune * Jugoi-ge Kanō Hisachika *Jushii-ge Matsudaira Naonobu *Jushii-ge Matsudaira Tsunenori *Jushii-ge Matsudaira Naoyoshi

Districts

Domains

* Yagyū Domain * Kōriyama Domain * Koizumi Domain * Yanagimoto Domain * Kaijū Domain / Shibamura Domain * Kujira Domain * Uda-Matsuyama Domain * Takatori Domain * Okidome Domain * Tatsuta Domain * Tawaramoto Domain * Kishida Domain * Yamato-Shinjō Domain * Gose Domain * Yamato-Gojō Domain

Notes

References

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

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

.
OCLC 58053128

External links

{{Gokishichidō Former provinces of Japan