was a feudal domain under the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japan, located in

Shimotsuke Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today Tochigi Prefecture.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''SHimotsuke''" in . Shimotsuke was bordered by Kōzuke Province, Kōzuke, Hitachi Province, ...

(modern-day

Tochigi Prefecture is a landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Tochigi Prefecture has a population of 1,897,649 (1 June 2023) and has a geographic area of 6,408 Square kilometre, km2 (2,474 Square mile, sq mi ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It was centered on Ōtawara Castle in what is now part of the city of Ōtawara, Tochigi. Ōtawara was ruled through all of its history by the Ōtawara clan.

History

The Ōtawara clan was a branch of the Nasu clan, and was one of the seven ''

Gōzoku , in Japanese, refers to powerful regional families. In historical context, it can refer to powerful non-royal families regardless of their area of influence, in contrast to the Imperial Family. The most powerful ''gōzoku'' families of the Yam ...

'' samurai bands of the Nasu region of northern Shimotsuke Province. In 1590, when

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

called upon the Nasu clan to assist in his plan to destroy the

Hōjō clan The was a Japanese samurai family who controlled the hereditary title of '' shikken'' (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate between 1203 and 1333. Despite the title, in practice the family wielded actual political power in Japan during this perio ...

at the Battle of Odawara, the Nasu refused his summons; however, Ōtawara Harukiyo went against his overlord and pledged allegiance to Hideyoshi. In return, he was awarded a 7,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

'' holding. In 1600, Ōtawara Harukiyo pledged his forces to

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

and fought a rear-guard action against the

Uesugi clan The is a Japanese samurai clan which was at its peak one of the most powerful during the Muromachi period, Muromachi and Sengoku periods (14th to 17th centuries).Georges Appert, Appert, Georges. (1888) ''Ancien Japon,'' p. 79./ref> At its heigh ...

while Ieyasu was at the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

. In return for this action, he was awarded another 5,000 ''koku'' and was thus admitted into the ranks of 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 no ...

. The Ōtawara continued to rule these holdings until the end of the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

. The 3rd daimyō, Ōtawara Takakiyo, gave 1,000 ''koku'' to his younger brother, reducing the domain to 11,000 ''koku''. During the

Bakumatsu period were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunat ...

, the 12th daimyō, Ōtawara Hirokiyo, established a domain academy. The final daimyō, Ōtawara Kazukiyo sided with the imperial forces in the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...

, and his castle attacked by pro-Tokugawa

Aizu Domain was a Han (Japan), domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1601 to 1871.Ravina, Mark. (1998) ''Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan,'' p. 222 The Aizu Domain was based at Aizuwakamatsu Castle, Tsuruga Castle in M ...

in May 1868. After 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 Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, he was made a viscount (''shishaku'') in the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

'' peerage system. After 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 July 1871, Ōtawara Domain became part of Tochigi Prefecture. The domain had a population of 12,535 people in 2397 households, of which 608 were samurai per a census in 1870.

Holdings at the end of the Edo period

As with most domains in the

han system (, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the Estate (land), estate of a daimyo in the Edo period (1603–1868) and early Meiji (era), Meiji period (1868–1912).Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Han"in ''Japan Encycloped ...

, Ōtawara Domain consisted of several discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned ''

kokudaka refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of ''koku'' of rice. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Koku"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 5 ...

'', based on periodic

cadastral A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes and bounds, metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represente ...

surveys and projected agricultural yields.Elison, George and Bardwell L. Smith (1987)
''Warlords, Artists, & Commoners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century,'' p. 18
*

**1 villages in Tsuga District **7 villages in Haga District **58 villages in Nasu District **13 villages in Shioya District

List of daimyō

References

External links

Ōtawara on "Edo 300 HTML"

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Otawara Domain Domains of Japan 1600 establishments in Japan States and territories established in 1600 1871 disestablishments in Japan States and territories disestablished in 1871 Shimotsuke Province History of Tochigi Prefecture