was a province of Japan in eastern Kyūshū in the area of Ōita Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with

Buzen Province was an old province of Japan in northern Kyūshū in the area of Fukuoka Prefecture and Ōita Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Bungo Province. Buzen bordered on Bungo and Chikuzen Provinces. History The ruins of the ancient capital ...

. Bungo bordered Buzen, Hyūga,

Higo Higo may refer to: * Higo Province, old province in what is now Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan * Higo Ko-ryu, Japanese koryū martial art * Higo Magalhães (born 1982), Brazilian football manager and former defensive midfielder * Higo (footballer) ...

, Chikugo, and Chikuzen Provinces.

History

At the end of the 7th century,

Toyo Province was an ancient province of Japan, in the area of Buzen and Bungo Provinces. The ancient entity was located in modern Ōita Prefecture and northeastern Fukuoka Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Buzen''" in , "''Bugo''" at . It w ...

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 Japane ...

, 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 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 territo ...

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, in the middle of the 16th century, Bungo was a stronghold of the Ōtomo clan. 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 was influenced to Buzen politics. In the middle of the period, both clans declined. After Toyotomi Hideyoshi also took the power in Kyūshū, 120 thousand

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

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 wh ...

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 line ...

, 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 '' daimyōs''. 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 fellow ...

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 provinces of Japan were converted into prefectures. Maps of Japan and Bungo Province were reformed in the 1870s.

Shrines and temples

Sasamuta-jinja is a Japanese Shinto shrine in Ōita, Ōita on the island of Kyushu.Kotodamaya.com"Sasamuta Jinja" retrieved 2012-10-25. History ''Sasamuta'' was the chief Shinto shrine (''ichinomiya'') of the old Bungo Province. It serves today as one of the ...

'' 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 ...

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

Historical districts

* Ōita Prefecture ** 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