was a after '' Kyōwa'' and before '' Bunsei''. The period spanned the years from January 1804 to April 1818. The reigning emperors were and .

Change of era

* February 11, 1804 (): The new era name of ''Bunka'' ( meaning "Culture" or "Civilization") was created to mark the start of a new 60-year cycle of the Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch system of the

Chinese calendar The traditional Chinese calendar (also known as the Agricultural Calendar ��曆; 农历; ''Nónglì''; 'farming calendar' Former Calendar ��曆; 旧历; ''Jiùlì'' Traditional Calendar ��曆; 老历; ''Lǎolì'', is a lunisolar calendar ...

which was on New Year's Day, th
new moon day
of 2 November 1804. The previous era ended and a new one commenced in '' Kyōwa'' 4.

Events of the ''Bunka'' era

* 1804 (''Bunka 1''): ''

Daigaku-no-kami was a Japanese Imperial court position and the title of the chief education expert in the rigid court hierarchy. The Imperial ''Daigaku-no-kami'' predates the Heian period; and the court position continued up through the early Meiji period. The ...

'' Hayashi Jussai (1768–1841) explained the shogunate foreign policy to Emperor Kōkaku in Kyoto. * June 1805 (''Bunka 2''): Genpaku Sugita (1733–1817) is granted an audience with Shōgun Ienari to explain differences between traditional medical knowledge and Western medical knowledge. * September 25, 1810 (''Bunka 7, 27th day of the 8thmonth''): Earthquake in northern Honshū (Latitude: 39.900/Longitude: 139.900), 6.6 magnitude on the

Surface wave magnitude The surface wave magnitude (M_s) scale is one of the magnitude scales used in seismology to describe the size of an earthquake. It is based on measurements of Rayleigh surface waves that travel along the uppermost layers of the Earth. This ma ...

scale.Online "Significant Earthquake Database" -- U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)...Click link for NOAA/Japan: Significant Earthquake Database
* December 7, 1812 (''Bunka 9, 4th day of the 11th month''): Earthquake in Honshū (Latitude: 35.400/Longitude: 139.600), 6.6 magnitude. * 1817 (''Bunka 14''): Emperor Kōkaku travelled in procession to Sento Imperial Palace, a palace of an abdicated emperor. The Sento Palace at that time was called Sakura Machi Palace. It had been built by the Tokugawa Shogunate for former- Emperor Go-Mizunoo.National Digital Archives of Japan
...see caption describing image of scroll

Notes

References

* Cullen, Louis M. (2003). ''A History of Japan, 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ;
OCLC 50694793
* Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). ''Japan Encyclopedia''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
OCLC 48943301
* Sugita Genpaku. (1930). . Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten
OCLC 9424185

External links

* National Diet Library, "The Japanese Calendar
-- historical overview plus illustrative images from library's collection
* National Archives of Japan
''Sakuramachiden Gyokozu'', scroll depicting Emperor Kōkaku in formal procession, 1817 (''Bunka 14'').
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bunka Japanese eras 1800s in Japan 1810s in Japan