was a

feudal domain A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The concept or ...

of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

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 ...

, Japan located in eastern

Mikawa Province was an old province in the area that today forms the eastern half of Aichi Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Mikawa''" in . Its abbreviated form name was . Mikawa bordered on Owari, Mino, Shinano, and Tōtōmi Provinces. Mik ...

(modern-day

Aichi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefectur ...

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 ...

. It was centered on

Okazaki Castle is a Japanese castle located in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. At the end of the Edo period, Okazaki Castle was home to the Honda clan, ''daimyō'' of Okazaki Domain, but the castle is better known for its association with Tokugawa Ieyasu an ...

in what is now the city of

Okazaki, Aichi is a city located in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 386,999 in 164,087 households, and a population density of 999 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Geography Okazaki is in the coastal plains o ...

. It was ruled by a number of different '' fudai

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 ...

'' over the course of the

. Due to its associations with

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 ...

, who was born in Okazaki Castle, the domain had a prestige greater than in its nominal valuation based on rice tax revenues.

History

Matsudaira Kiyoyasu was the 7th lord over the Matsudaira clan during the Sengoku period (16th century) of Japan. Kiyoyasu was the grandfather of the third "great unifier of Japan", Tokugawa Ieyasu. Biography Kiyoyasu gained control of the whole of northern Mika ...

, after gaining control of the area surrounding Okazaki in 1524, demolished the old fortification and built Okazaki Castle. His famous grandson Matsudaira Motoyasu (later named

) was born here on December 16, 1542. The Matsudaira were defeated by the

Imagawa clan was a Japanese samurai clan that claimed descent from the Seiwa Genji by way of the Kawachi Genji. It was a branch of the Minamoto clan by the Ashikaga clan. Origins Ashikaga Kuniuji, grandson of Ashikaga Yoshiuji, established himself in the ...

in 1549, and Ieyasu was taken to Sunpu as a hostage. Following the defeat of the Imagawa at the

Battle of Okehazama The took place in June 1560 in Owari Province, located in today's Aichi Prefecture. In this battle, the heavily outnumbered Oda clan troops commanded by Oda Nobunaga defeated Imagawa Yoshimoto and established himself as one of the front-running ...

, Ieyasu regained possession of Okazaki in 1560 and left his eldest son

Matsudaira Nobuyasu was the eldest son of Matsudaira Ieyasu. His ''tsūshō'' ("common name") was . He was called also , because he had become the lord of in 1570. Because he was a son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, he is often referred to, retroactively, as . Biography No ...

in charge when he moved to

Hamamatsu Castle is a replica ''hirayama''-style Japanese castle. It was the seat of various ''fudai daimyō'' who ruled over Hamamatsu Domain, Tōtōmi Province, in what is now central Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan under the Edo period Tokugawa shogunat ...

in 1570. After

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

ordered Nobuyasu’s death in 1579, the

Honda clan The is a Japanese family that claims descent from the medieval court noble Fujiwara no Kanemichi. The family settled in Mikawa and served the Matsudaira clan as retainers. Later, when the main Matsudaira family became the Tokugawa clan, the Hon ...

served as castellans. Following the forced relocation of the Tokugawa to Edo after the Battle of Odawara by

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

, the castle was given to

Tanaka Yoshimasa is the fourth most common Japanese surname. It is typically written with the kanji for . Less common variants include , , , , and . People with the surname *, Japanese musician formerly known as Boku no Lyric no Bōyomi *, Japanese voice actres ...

, who substantially improved on its fortifications, expanded the

castle town A castle town is a settlement built adjacent to or surrounding a castle. Castle towns were common in Medieval Europe. Some examples include small towns like Alnwick and Arundel, which are still dominated by their castles. In Western Europe, ...

and developed

Okazaki-juku was the thirty-eighth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in the present-day city of Okazaki, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. History Okazaki-shuku was a part of the flourishing castle town surrounding Okazaki Castle, ...

on the Tokaido. Following the creation of the

, Okazaki Domain was created, and Ieyasu’s close retainer Honda Yasushige was assigned possession of the castle. The Honda were replaced by the

Mizuno clan The was a Japanese kin group which claimed descent from Minamoto no Mitsumasa, son of Minamoto no Tsunemoto of the Seiwa Genji clan. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2 ...

from 1645-1762, and the Matsudaira (Matsui) clan from 1762-1769. In 1769, a branch of the Honda clan returned to Okazaki, and governed until the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

. In 1869, the final ''daimyō'' of Okazaki Domain, Honda Tadanao, surrendered Okazaki Domain to the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

. With the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

in 1871, Okazaki Domain became part of

Nukata Prefecture was a prefecture in the Chūbu region of Japan, comprising the former state of Mikawa and the Chita Peninsula Chita Peninsula (知多半島 ''Chita Hantō'') is a peninsula to the south of Aichi Prefecture, central Honshū, Japan. It runs ...

, with Okazaki Castle used as the prefectural headquarters. However, Nukata Prefecture was merged into Aichi Prefecture in 1872, and the capital of the prefecture was moved to

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most pop ...

. Okazaki Domain was not a single contiguous territory, but consisted of a number of scattered holdings in Mikawa Province, which at the end of the Edo period included: * 95 villages in Hekinan District * 110 villages in Nukata District * 9 villages in Hazu District

List of daimyō

References

External links

Okazaki on "Edo 300 HTML"
{{Authority control 1601 establishments in Japan 1871 disestablishments in Japan Domains of Japan History of Aichi Prefecture Honda clan Matsui-Matsudaira clan Mikawa Province Mizuno clan States and territories established in 1601 States and territories disestablished in 1871