or was a

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

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 north ...

in the part of

Honshū , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...

that is today northeastern

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,906,464 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefectur ...

. Mimasaka bordered Bitchū, Bizen,

Harima or Banshū (播州) was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is the southwestern part of present-day Hyōgo Prefecture. Harima bordered on Tajima, Tanba, Settsu, Bizen, and Mimasaka Provinces. Its capital was Himeji. During the ...

Hōki was a after ''Jingo-keiun'' and before ''Ten'ō''. This period spanned the years from October 770 through January 781. The reigning emperor was . Change of era * 770 : The new era name was created to mark an event or series of events. The pr ...

, and Inaba Provinces. Mimasaka was landlocked, and was often ruled by the ''

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

'' in Bizen. The ancient capital and castle town was

Tsuyama is a city in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 102,294 and a population density of 200 persons per km². The total area was 185.73 km². The area increased in 2005 as the result of a merger with adjacent to ...

. During the

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 characteriz ...

the province was controlled by the Tsuyama Domain. Mimasaka is the home of the

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

Miyamoto Musashi, the author of '' The Book of Five Rings''.

Historical record

In the 3rd month of the 6th year of the '' Wadō''

era An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Compa ...

(713), the land of ''Mimasaka no kuni'' was administratively separated from

Bizen Province was a province of Japan on the Inland Sea side of Honshū, in what is today the southeastern part of Okayama Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Bitchū and Bingo Provinces. Bizen borders Mimasaka, Harima, and Bitchū Provinces. Bizen ...

. 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 Jap ...

'' 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 cap ...

. In ''Wadō'' 6, Tanba Province was sundered from Tango Province; and Hyūga Province was divided from Ōsumi Province.Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). In ''Wadō'' 5 (712),

Mutsu Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori Prefectures and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. Mutsu Province is also known as or . The term is often used to refer to the comb ...

had been severed from Dewa Province.

Shrines and temples

Nakayama Shrine is a Shinto shrine in the Ichinomiya neighborhood of the city of Tsuyama in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. It is the ''ichinomiya'' of former Mimasaka Province. The main festival of the shrine is held annually on April 29. Although the ''kanji'' of t ...

was the chief

Shinto shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

(''

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 Mimasaka. "Nationwide List of ''Ichinomiya''," p. 3
; retrieved 2012-11-20.

Historical districts

Aida District is a district located in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. As of 2003, the district has an estimated population of 31,845 and a density of 79.65 persons per km2. The total area is 399.83 km2. Towns and villages Aida District consists of the ...

(英田郡) – absorbed Yoshino District on April 1, 1900 ** Kumehokujō District (久米北条郡) – merged with Kumenanjō District to become Kume District (久米郡) on April 1, 1890 ** Kumenanjō District (久米南条郡) – merged with Kumehokujō District to become Kume District on April 1, 1890 ** Mashima District (真島郡) – merged with Ōba District to become Maniwa District (真庭郡) on April 1, 1890 ** Ōba District (大庭郡) – merged with Mashima District to become Maniwa District on April 1, 1890 ** Saihokujō District (西北条郡) – merged with Saisaijō, Tōhokujō and Tōnanjō Districts to become Tomata District (苫田郡) on April 1, 1890 ** Saisaijō District (西西条郡) – merged with Saihokujō, Tōhokujō and Tōnanjō Districts to become Tomata District on April 1, 1890 ** Shōboku District (勝北郡) – merged with Shōnan District to become Katsuta District (勝田郡) on April 1, 1890 ** Shōnan District (勝南郡) – merged with Shōboku District to become Katsuta District on April 1, 1890 ** Tōhokujō District (東北条郡) – merged with Saihokujō, Saisaijō and Tōnanjō Districts to become Tomata District on April 1, 1890 ** Tōnanjō District (東南条郡) – merged with Saihokujō, Saisaijō and Tōhokujō Districts to become Tomata District on April 1, 1890 **

Yoshino District is a Districts of Japan, district located in Nara Prefecture, Japan. In 2020, the district had an estimated population of 37,086 and a population density, density of 18.05 persons per km2. The total area is 2,055 km2. On September 25, 2005, th ...

(吉野郡) – merged into Aida District on April 1, 1900

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 retirem ...

.
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

External links

* ttp://www.maproom.org/00/05/sub1/1.html Murdoch's map of provinces, 1903 {{Japan Old Province Former provinces of Japan Okayama Prefecture