was a

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

of Japan in eastern Kyūshū in the area of

Ōita Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Ōita Prefecture has a population of 1,136,245 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,340 km2 (2,448 sq mi). Ōita Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northwest, Kum ...

. It was sometimes called , with Buzen Province. Bungo bordered Buzen, Hyūga, Higo, Chikugo, and Chikuzen Provinces.

History

At the end of the 7th century, Toyo Province was split into ''Buzen'' (literally, "the front of ''Toyo''") and ''Bungo'' ("the back of ''Toyo''"). Until the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese ...

, Bungo was read as ''Toyokuni no Michi no Shiri''. It is believed that the capital of Bungo was located in ''Furugō'' (古国府), literally "old capital," section of the city of Ōita, but as of 2016 no archaeological evidence has been found. The honor of the holiest

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

shrine of Bungo Province (豊前一宮, ''Buzen ichinomiya'') was given to

Usa Shrine The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

known as Usa Hachimangu or Usa Jingu in Usa district (today

Usa, Ōita is a city located in Ōita Prefecture, Japan at the tip of Kunisaki Peninsula in northern Kyushu. Notable for the Usa Jingū, the head shrine of all 40,000 Hachiman shrines across Japan, the city annually attracts as many as 1.8 million wors ...

). Usa shrine had not only religious authority but also political influence to local governance, but their influence was reduced until the Sengoku period. During the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, 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 Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

, in the middle of the 16th century, Bungo was a stronghold of the

Ōtomo clan was a Japanese samurai family whose power stretched from the Kamakura period through the Sengoku period, spanning over 400 years. The clan's hereditary lands lay in Kyūshū. Origins The first family head, Ōtomo Yoshinao (1172–1223), took ...

. The

Ōuchi clan was one of the most powerful and important families in Western Japan during the reign of the Ashikaga shogunate in the 12th to 14th centuries. Their domains, ruled from the castle town of Yamaguchi, comprised six provinces at their height, and ...

in the western

Chūgoku Region The , also known as the region, is the westernmost region of Honshū, the largest island of Japan. It consists of the prefectures of Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, and Yamaguchi. In 2010, it had a population of 7,563,428. History ''C ...

was influenced to Buzen politics. In the middle of the period, both clans declined. After

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

also took the power in Kyūshū, 120 thousand koku of Buzen province was given to

Kuroda Yoshitaka , also known as , was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Sengoku through early Edo periods. Renowned as a man of great ambition, he succeeded Takenaka Hanbei as a chief strategist and adviser to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Kuroda became a Christian ...

since 1587, who made

Kokura is an ancient castle town and the center of Kitakyushu, Japan, guarding the Straits of Shimonoseki between Honshu and Kyushu with its suburb Moji. Kokura is also the name of the penultimate station on the southbound San'yō Shinkansen li ...

, currently part of

Kitakyushu, Fukuoka is a city located in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2019, Kitakyushu has an estimated population of 940,978, making it the second-largest city in both Fukuoka Prefecture and the island of Kyushu after the city of Fukuoka. It is one of ...

, his site and built the castle. Other parts of the province were divided into pieces and given to other ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominal ...

s''. In the year 1600 the Dutch ship piloted by the Englishman Will Adams foundered on Bungo's coast. When Shogun

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...

interviewed Adams, his suspicions were confirmed that the Jesuits, who had been allowed to operate in Japan since the 1540s, were intent on gaining control of the country. When the time was right, in 1614, Ieyasu banished all Christian activity. Thus, Adams' landing in Bungo proved significant to the nation's subsequent history. This series of historic events was the basis of the 1975 book '' Shogun'', and the 1980 miniseries of the same name. In the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, the provinces of Japan were converted into prefectures. Maps of Japan and Bungo Province were

reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...

ed in the 1870s.

Shrines and temples

'' Sasamuta-jinja'' and '' Yusuhara Hachiman-gū'' were the chief Shinto shrines (''

ichinomiya is a Japanese historical term referring to the Shinto shrines with the highest rank in a province. Shrines of lower rank were designated , , , and so forth. ''Encyclopedia of Shinto'' ''Ichi no miya'' retrieved 2013-5-14. The term gave rise t ...

'') of Bungo."Nationwide List of ''Ichinomiya''," p. 3
; retrieved 2012-1-18.

Historical districts

** Amabe District (海部郡) *** Kitaamabe District (北海部郡) - dissolved *** Minamiamabe District (南海部郡) - dissolved ** Hayami District (速見郡) ** Hita District (日高郡) - dissolved ** Kusu District (球珠郡) ** Kunisaki District (国埼郡) *** Higashikunisaki District (東国東郡) *** Nishikunisaki District (西国東郡) - dissolved ** Naoiri District (直入郡) - dissolved ** Ōno District (大野郡) - dissolved ** Ōita District (大分郡) - dissolved

Notes

External links

Murdoch's map of provinces, 1903
{{Japan Old Province Former provinces of Japan

History

Shrines and temples

Historical districts

See also

Notes

External links