was a

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

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 ...

on the Inland Sea side of western

Honshū , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

, in what is today western

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,826,059 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefecture ...

. It was sometimes called , with Bizen and Bingo Provinces; those three provinces were settled in the late 7th Century, dividing former Kibi Province. Bitchu bordered Hōki, Mimasaka, Bizen, and Bingo Provinces. The ancient capital and temples were built around

Sōja file:Bitchu Kokubunji, zenkei.jpg, 270px, Bitchū Kokubun-ji is a Cities of Japan, city located in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 69,428 and a population density of 330 persons per km2. The total area of the ...

. For much of the

Muromachi Period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

, the province was dominated by the Hosokawa clan, who resided in

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

and allowed the province a degree of independence. By the

Sengoku Period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

, other clans fought over Bitchu, and

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

and Mōri Terumoto were fighting in the province when Oda died, leading to a division of the province. After 1600, the province was divided among a variety of han (fiefs), and included a number of castles. By the time the provinces were reorganized into prefectures, the dominant city was the port, Kurashiki.

Shrines and temples

'' Kibitsu jinja'' was the chief

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

('' ichinomiya'') of Bitchū."Nationwide List of ''Ichinomiya''," p. 3
; retrieved 2012-11-20.

Historical districts

** Aga District (阿賀郡) - merged with Tetta District to become Atetsu District (阿哲郡) on April 1, 1900 ** Asakuchi District (浅口郡) ** Jōbō District (上房郡) - dissolved ** Kawakami District (川上郡) - dissolved ** Kayō District (賀陽郡) - merged with Shimotsu District to become Kibi District (吉備郡) on April 1, 1900 ** Kuboya District (窪屋郡) - merged with Tsuu District to become Tsukubo District (都窪郡) on April 1, 1900 ** Oda District (小田郡) ** Shimotsu District (下道郡) - merged with Kayō District to become Kibi District on April 1, 1900 ** Shitsuki District (後月郡) - dissolved ** Tetta District (哲多郡) - merged with Aga District to become Atetsu District on April 1, 1900 ** Tsuu District (都宇郡) - merged with Kuboya District to become Tsukubo 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 an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

.
OCLC 58053128

External links

{{Okayama-geo-stub