was an old province of

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 ...

in the area of

Kagoshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,527,019 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 9,187 Square kilometre, km2 (3,547 Square m ...

, roughly corresponding to Kumage Subprefecture.

History

Kofun burial mounds on

Tanegashima is one of the Ōsumi Islands belonging to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, in area, is the second largest of the Ōsumi Islands, and has a population of 33,000 people. Access to the island is by ferry, or by air to New Tanegashima Airp ...

and two very old Shinto shrines on

Yakushima is one of the Ōsumi Islands in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, in area, has a population of 13,178. It is accessible by hydrofoil ferry, car ferry, or by air to Yakushima Airport. Administratively, the island consists of the town ...

suggest that these islands were the southern border of the

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

. Annals of the Nara period regard Tane-no-kuni as the name for all the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Geography of Taiwan, Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands (Ōsumi Islands, Ōsumi, Tokara Islands, Tokara and A ...

, including Tanegashima and Yakushima. * 675 ('' Temmu 3''): Ambassadors of "''Tane no kuni''" were received in the Japanese court.Beillevaire, Patrick. (2000). ; excerpt, "''Im dritten Jahre der Regierung des Mikado Ten mu (674) kamen auch Gesandte von Tane no kuni an den japanischen Hof. Jakusima und das heutige Tanegasima waren die nördlichsten der mehrgenannten Südseeinseln....''"; compare NengoCalc ''Temmu 3'' (天武三年) * 702 ('' Taihō 2''): The ''

Shoku Nihongi The is an imperially-commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 797, it is the second of the '' Six National Histories'', coming directly after the and followed by ''Nihon Kōki''. Fujiwara no Tsugutada and Sugano no Mamichi served as t ...

'' records, " Satsuma and Tane broke the relation and disobey to the king's order. So (the government) sent an army, conquered them, counted the population, and placed the officials." This marks the establishment of the Satsuma and Tane Provinces. * 824 ('' Tenchō 1''): Tane was annexed to

Ōsumi Province was a province of Japan in the area of southeastern Kyūshū, corresponding to the eastern half of modern Kagoshima Prefecture, and including the Ōsumi Islands . Ōsumi bordered on Hyūga to the northeast, and Satsuma Province to the nor ...

Notes

References

* Beillevaire, Patrick. (2000). ''Ryūkyū Studies to 1854: Western Encounter,'' Vol. 1. London: Taylor & Francis. ;
OCLC 468547073
* 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

Other websites

Former provinces of Japan {{Kagoshima-geo-stub