was an
old province of
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
in the area that is today the eastern part of
Kagoshima Prefecture. It was sometimes called . Ōsumi bordered on
Hyūga and
Satsuma Provinces.
Osumi's ancient capital was near modern
Kokubu. During the
Sengoku and
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 ...
s, Ōsumi was controlled by the
Shimazu clan
The were the '' daimyō'' of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan.
The Shimazu were identified as one of the '' tozama'' or outsider ''daimyō'' familiesAppert, Georges ''et al.'' (1888). in cont ...
of neighboring Satsuma and did not develop a major administrative center.
The Ōsumi region has developed its own distinct local
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
. Although Ōsumi is part of Kagoshima Prefecture today, this dialect is different from that spoken in the city of
Kagoshima
, abbreviated to , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin. It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern wor ...
. There is a notable cultural pride in traditional
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...
written in Ōsumi and Kagoshima dialects.
Japan's first satellite, ''
Ōsumi'', was named after the province.
Historical record
In the 3rd month of the 6th year of the ''
Wadō''
era (713), the land of Ōsumi Province was administratively separated from
Hyūga Province. In that same year,
Empress Genmei's ''
Daijō-kan
The , also known as the Great Council of State, was (i) (''Daijō-kan'') the highest organ of Japan's premodern Imperial government under the Ritsuryō legal system during and after the Nara period or (ii) (''Dajō-kan'') the highest organ of J ...
'' continued to organize other
cadastral changes in the provincial map of the
Nara period
The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the c ...
.
[ Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). ]
Historical districts
*
Kagoshima Prefecture
**
Aira District (姶良郡) - absorbed Kuwabara and Nishisoo Districts on March 29, 1896
**
Gomu District (馭謨郡) - merged into Kumage District on March 29, 1896
**
Hishikari District (菱刈郡) - merged with
Kitaisa District (北伊佐郡) of
Satsuma Province
was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Satsuma" in . Its abbreviation is .
History
Satsuma's provincial capital was Satsumasendai. Dur ...
to become the 2nd incarnation of
Isa District (伊佐郡) on March 29, 1896
**
Kimotsuki District (肝属郡) - absorbed Minamiōsumi District on March 29, 1896
**
Kumage District (熊毛郡) - absorbed Gomu District on March 29, 1896
**
Kuwabara District (桑原郡) - was merged into Aira District (along with Nishisoo District) on March 29, 1896
**
Ōshima District (大島郡)
**
Ōsumi District (大隅郡)
***
Kitaōsumi District (北大隅郡) - merged into
Kagoshima District (鹿児島郡) of Satsuma Province (along with
Taniyama District (谿山郡) of Satsuma Province) on March 29, 1896
***
Minamiōsumi District (南大隅郡) - merged into Kimotsuki District on March 29, 1896
**
Soo District (囎唹郡)
***
Higashisoo District (東囎唹郡) - merged with
Minamimorokata District (南諸県郡) (formerly from
Miyazaki Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Miyazaki Prefecture has a population of 1,073,054 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 7,735 km2 (2,986 sq mi). Miyazaki Prefecture borders Ōita Prefecture to the north, Ku ...
) to become the 2nd incarnation of
Soo District (曽於郡; as of 1972) on March 29, 1896
***
Nishisoo District (西囎唹郡) - was merged into Aira District (along with Kuwabura District) on March 29, 1896
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 retir ...
.
OCLC 58053128*
Titsingh, Isaac. (1834)
''Annales des empereurs du Japon''(''
Nihon Ōdai Ichiran
, ', is a 17th-century chronicle of the serial reigns of Japanese emperors with brief notes about some of the noteworthy events or other happenings.
According to the 1871 edition of the '' American Cyclopaedia'', the 1834 French translation of ...
''). Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland
OCLC 5850691
Other websites
Former provinces of Japan
{{Kagoshima-geo-stub