was the name for ancient administrative units organized in

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 ...

during the

Asuka period The was a period in the history of Japan lasting from 538 to 710, although its beginning could be said to overlap with the preceding Kofun period. The Yamato period, Yamato polity evolved greatly during the Asuka period, which is named after the ...

(AD 538–710), as part of a legal and governmental system borrowed from the Chinese. Though these units did not survive as administrative structures beyond the Muromachi period (1336–1573), they did remain important geographical entities until the 19th century. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). The Gokishichidō consisted of five provinces in the Kinai () or capital region, plus seven ''dō'' () or circuits, each of which contained

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

of its own. When

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

was included as a circuit after the defeat of the Republic of Ezo in 1869, the system was briefly called . The abolition of the ''han'' system abolished the -han (early modern feudal domains) in 1871, -dō/circuits and provinces were per se not abolished by the abolition of domains; but the prefectures that sprang from the domains became the primary administrative division of the country and were soon merged and reorganized to territorially resemble provinces in many places. "Hokkai circuit" (Hokkai-dō) was the only -dō that would survive as administrative division, but it was later increasingly treated as "Hokkai prefecture" (Hokkai-dō); finally after WWII, the -dō was fully regarded as a prefecture: from 1946, the prefectures (until then only -fu/-ken) were legally referred to as -dō/-fu/-ken, from 1947 as -to/-dō/-fu/-ken.

Five Provinces

The five Kinai provinces were local areas in and around the imperial capital (first Heijō-kyō at

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

, then Heian-kyō at Kyōto). They were: * Izumi Province (now the southern part of

Osaka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Nara ...

) * Kawachi Province (now the southeastern part of

) * Settsu Province (now the northern part of

, including the city of

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

, and parts of

Hyōgo Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to th ...

) * Yamashiro Province (now the southern part of Kyōto Prefecture, including the city of Kyōto) * Yamato Province (now

Nara Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the ...

)

Seven Circuits

The seven ''dō'' or circuits were administrative areas stretching away from the Kinai region in different directions. Running through each of the seven areas was an actual road of the same name, connecting the imperial capital with all of the provincial capitals along its route. The seven ''dō'' were: *Eastern sea circuit / Tōkaidō (running east along Japan's Pacific coast). *Eastern mountains circuit / Tōsandō (northeast through the Japanese Alps). *Northern land circuit / Hokurikudō (northeast along the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

coast). *Dark (Northern) mountains circuit / San'indō (west along the

coast).Titsingh, *Light (Southern) mountains circuit / San'yōdō (west along the northern side of the Seto Inland Sea). *Southern sea circuit / Nankaidō (south to the Kii Peninsula and the islands of Awaji and

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 ...

). *Western sea circuit /

Saikaidō The is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. Saikaido was one of the main Circuit (subnational entity), circuits of the Gokishichidō system, which was originally es ...

(the "western" island, Kyūshū).

''Gokaidō''

The Gokishichidō roads should not be confused with the Edo Five Routes (五街道 ''Gokaidō''), which were the five major roads leading to Edo during the

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 ...

(1603–1867). The Tōkaidō was one of the five routes, but the others were not.

Regional perimeters

Many prefectures were merged and reorganized in the 1870s and 1880s to resemble provinces, so many modern prefectures can be assigned to an ancient circuit. For example, the Western provinces of the Tōkai circuit ''(Tōkai-dō)'' are now part of prefectures that are often grouped together as the Tōkai region ''(Tōkai-chihō)''. But there are still deviations, so that it is not comprehensively possible to describe circuits in terms of prefectures. For example, present-day Hyōgo in its borders since 1876 extends into five provinces ( Harima, Tajima, Awaji, Settsu, Tamba)Hyōgo prefectural government
県域の変遷 (''ken'iki no hensen'', "changes of the prefectural territory")
with maps showing the evolution of Hyōgo's prefectural territory in the 1870s (Japanese), retrieved October 24, 2020. and thus into three circuits (San'yō, San'in, Nankai) as well as the ancient capital region. A few Japanese regions, such as Hokuriku and San'yō, still retain their ancient Gokishichidō names. Other parts of Japan, namely Hokkaidō and the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Geography of Taiwan, Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands (Ōsumi Islands, Ōsumi, Tokara Islands, Tokara and A ...

, were not included in the Gokishichidō because they were not colonized by Japan until the 19th century, just as the Gokishichidō geographic divisions and the feudal '' han'' domains were being replaced with the modern system of prefectures. Initially the government tried to organize Hokkaidō as an eighth ''dō'' (hence the name), but it was soon consolidated into a single prefecture.

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 ...