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 area that is today the eastern part of

Yamaguchi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Yamaguchi Prefecture has a population of 1,377,631 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 6,112 Square kilometre, km2 (2,359 Square mile, sq mi). Y ...

. It was sometimes called . Suō bordered on Aki, Iwami, and Nagato Provinces. The ancient provincial capital was in

Hōfu is a city located in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. As of September 30, 2016, the city has an estimated population of 117,387 and a population density of 622.44 people per km2. The total area is 188.59 km2. History Hōfu (防府) means "the c ...

. Suō was ruled for much of the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

by 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 ...

, who built a castle at Yamaguchi. In 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 ...

it was conquered by the

Mōri clan The Mōri clan (毛利氏 ''Mōri-shi'') was a Japanese samurai clan descended from Ōe no Hiromoto. Ōe no Hiromoto was descended from the Fujiwara clan. The family's most illustrious member, Mōri Motonari, greatly expanded the clan's power ...

, and was ruled remotely by them for much of 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 ...

Shrines and temples

Tamanoya jinja Tamanoya is a kami from Japanese mythology. He is believed to be the creator of Yasakani no Magatama. Tama-no-iwaya is believed to be the grave for the kami, and he is venerated at Tamanooya-jinja but is not venerated at any kampeisha. Fami ...

'' 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 Suō. "Nationwide List of ''Ichinomiya''," p. 2
retrieved 2012-11-20.

Historical districts

** Kuga District (玖珂郡) ** Kumage District (熊毛郡) ** Ōshima District (大島郡) ** Saba District (佐波郡) – dissolved ** Tsuno District (都濃郡) – dissolved ** Yoshiki District (吉敷郡) – dissolved

Maps

Shōhō Kuniezu - Suō Province (Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives).jpg, '' Shōhō Kuniezu'' - Suō Province, with Nagato in yellow, Iwami in blue, and Aki in pink (

Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives opened in Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, in 1959 as the country's first dedicated modern archival institution. History In Shōwa 27 (1952), the Mōri family, former ''daimyō'' of Chōshū Domain, deposited its domainal documents wit ...

) Genroku Kuniezu - Suō Province (Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives).jpg, ''

Genroku Kuniezu The were a series of Japanese provincial land maps, created during the Edo period, which the Tokugawa shogunate ordered be created by every province. They are sometimes contrasted with , which were national maps created by the shogunate. In 19 ...

'' - Suō Province, with Nagato in red, Iwami in green, and Aki in pink (Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives) Tenpō Kuniezu - Suō Province (Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives).jpg, '' Tenpō Kuniezu'' - Suō Province (Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives) Yamaguchi Prefecture (Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives).jpg, 1878 map of

, marked with its two constituent provinces of and , as well as neighbouring and (Yamaguchi Prefectural Archives)

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

External links

Former provinces of Japan {{Yamaguchi-geo-stub