1.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
2.
Geography
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Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth. The first person to use the word γεωγραφία was Eratosthenes, Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of the Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. It is often defined in terms of the two branches of geography and physical geography. Geography has been called the world discipline and the bridge between the human and the physical sciences, Geography is a systematic study of the Earth and its features. Traditionally, geography has been associated with cartography and place names, although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the space and the temporal database distribution of phenomena, processes, because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns. Names of places. are not geography. know by heart a whole gazetteer full of them would not, in itself and this is a description of the world—that is Geography. In a word Geography is a Science—a thing not of mere names but of argument and reason, of cause, just as all phenomena exist in time and thus have a history, they also exist in space and have a geography. Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main fields, human geography and physical geography. The former largely focuses on the environment and how humans create, view, manage. The latter examines the environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water. The difference between these led to a third field, environmental geography, which combines physical and human geography. Physical geography focuses on geography as an Earth science and it aims to understand the physical problems and the issues of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and global flora and fauna patterns. Physical geography can be divided into broad categories, including, Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns. It encompasses the human, political, cultural, social, and it requires an understanding of the traditional aspects of physical and human geography, as well as the ways that human societies conceptualize the environment. Integrated geography has emerged as a bridge between the human and the geography, as a result of the increasing specialisation of the two sub-fields. Examples of areas of research in the environmental geography include, emergency management, environmental management, sustainability, geomatics is concerned with the application of computers to the traditional spatial techniques used in cartography and topography
3.
Greater Tokyo Area
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The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, consisting of the Kantō region of Japan, including the Tokyo Metropolis, as well as the prefecture of Yamanashi. In Japanese, it is referred to by terms, the most common of which being National Capital Region. A2016 United Nations estimate puts the population at 38,000,000. It covers an area of approximately 13,500 km², giving it a density of 2,642 person/km². It is the second largest single area in the world in terms of built-up or urban function landmass at 8,547 km². The area has the largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a total GDP of approximately $2 trillion in 2008. According to research published by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the agglomeration of Tokyo had a total GDP of $1.5 trillion in 2008, there are various definitions of the Greater Tokyo Area, each of which tries to incorporate different aspects. Each definition has a different population figure, granularity, methodology, notes & Sources, All figures issued by Japan Statistics Bureau, except for Metro Employment Area, a study by Center for Spatial Information Service, the University of Tokyo. Abbreviations, CF for National Census Final Data, CR for Civil Registry, the government ordinance defined it as Tokyo and all six prefectures in the Kantō region plus Yamanashi Prefecture. While this includes all of Greater Tokyo, it also includes sparsely populated areas as well as far-flung Bonin Islands which are administered under Tokyo. Other metropolitan areas such as Greater Jakarta are considerably more compact as well as densely populated than Greater Tokyo. The South Kantō region is an ambiguous term. Informally, it may mean the One Metropolis, Two Prefectures, in informal occasions, the term National Capital Region often means Greater Tokyo Area. Officially, the term refers to a larger area, namely the whole Kantō region. Tokyo is legally classified as a to, which translates as metropolis, the metropolis is administered by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government as a whole. Central Tokyo, situated in the portion of Tokyo Metropolis, was once incorporated as Tokyo City. Its subdivisions have been reclassified as special wards, the twenty three special wards currently have the legal status of cities, with individual mayors and city councils, and they call themselves cities in English. However, when listing Japans largest cities, Tokyos twenty three wards are often counted as a single city. go, if they are included, Greater Tokyos population would be around 39 million
4.
Gunma Prefecture
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Gunma Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the northwest corner of the Kantō region on the main Honshu island. Japan was without horses until around the fifth century CE, the ancient province of Gunma was a center of the horsebreeding and trading activities for the newly immigrated continental peoples. The arrival of horses and the remains of horse-tackle coincides with the arrival of a migration from the mainland. From this point forward, the became a vital part of Japanese military maneuvers. When Mount Haruna erupted in the late 6th century, Japan was still in the pre-historical phase, the Gunma Prefectural archaeology unit in 1994 was able to date the eruption through zoological anthropology at the corral sites that were buried in ash. In the past, Gunma was joined with Tochigi Prefecture and called Kenu Province and this was later divided into Kami-tsu-ke and Shimo-tsu-ke. The area is referred to as Jomo. For most of Japanese history, Gunma was known as the province of Kozuke, the first modern silk factories were built with Italian and French assistance at Annaka in the 1870s. The modern Japanese army gunned down farmers with new repeating rifles built in Japan, the farmers in Gunma were said to be the first victims of the Murata rifle. In the twentieth century, the Japanese aviation pioneer Nakajima Chikushi of Oizumi, Gunma Prefecture, the factory now produces Subaru motorcars and other products under the name of Fuji Heavy Industries. In the 1930s, German architect Bruno Julius Florian Taut lived and conducted research for a while in Takasaki, the Girard Incident, which disturbed US-Japanese relations in the 1950s, occurred in Gunma in 1957, at Soumagahara Base near Shibukawa. Four modern prime ministers are from Gunma, namely, Takeo Fukuda, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Keizo Obuchi, and Yasuo Fukuda, one of only eight landlocked prefectures in Japan, Gunma is the northwestern-most prefecture of the Kantō plain. Except for the central and southeast areas, where most of the population is concentrated, to the north are Niigata and Fukushima prefectures, while to the east lies Tochigi Prefecture. To the west lies Nagano Prefecture, and Saitama Prefecture is to the south, some of the major mountains in Gunma are Mount Akagi, Mount Haruna, Mount Myōgi, Mount Nikkō-Shirane and Mount Asama, which is located on the Nagano border. Major rivers include the Tone River, the Agatsuma River, and this is because of the kara-kaze, a strong, dry wind which occurs in the winter when the snow falls on the coasts of Niigata. The wind carrying clouds with snow are obstructed by the Echigo Mountains, for this reason, the wind changes into the kara-kaze. More traditional industries include sericulture and agriculture, gunmas major agricultural products include cabbages and konjacs. Gunma produces 90% of Japans konjacs, and two-thirds of the farms in the village of Tsumagoi are cabbage farms, also, the city of Ōta is famous for car industry, notably the Subaru factory
5.
Tochigi Prefecture
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Tochigi Prefecture is a prefecture located in the Kantō region on the island of Honshu, Japan. The capital is the city of Utsunomiya, Nikkō, whose ancient Shintō shrines and Buddhist temples UNESCO has recognized by naming them a World Heritage Site, is in this prefecture. Other famous parts of Tochigi include a region called Nasu known for onsen and local sake, the Imperial Family has a villa in Nasu. Nasu-Shiobara is a major Shinkansen station, situated among the inland prefectures of the northern part of the Kantō region, Tochigi is contiguous with Ibaraki, Gunma, Saitama, and Fukushima Prefectures. The climate of Tochigi may be classified as a temperate zone with broad variations in temperature. Winters are arid with dry winds, while summers are humid with frequent thunderstorms, the population of Tochigi as of November 2010 is approximately 2,005,096. Located in the center of the prefecture is the largest open plain in the Kantō region, shirane, Nantai and Nasudake mountain are in the northern part of the area. Kinugawa, Nakagawa, and Watarase River originate in this region, Tochigi is the 20th largest prefecture in Japan with a total area of 6,408 square km. As of 1 April 2012, 21% of the land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks, namely Nikkō National Park, Oze National Park. Before the Meiji Restoration, Tochigi was known as Shimotsuke Province, in the early 15th century, Ashikaga Gakko, Japans oldest school of higher education, was re-established, holding over 3,000 students by the 16th century. Saint Francis Xavier introduced Ashikaga to the world as the best university in Japan, in the early 17th century, Japan was unified by the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. After his death, Tōshō-gū shrine was built in Nikko on what the thought of as holy ground to protect. The establishment of the Nikkō Tōshō-gū in 1617 brought Nikkō to national attention, the Tokugawa shogunate developed the Nikkō Kaidō and required lavish processions to worship Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line of shoguns. In the late 19th century, the Tokugawa Shogunate fell and the new government established the prefectures, the prefectural capital was established in the city of Tochigi after the unification of Utsunomiya Prefecture and Tochigi Prefecture in 1873. By 1884, however, the capital was transferred to Utsunomiya, in March 2011, following the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, levels of radioactivity in Utsunomiya were 33 times higher than normal. The chief city of Utsunomiya is famous for its many gyoza specialist shops, also located in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture has one of the largest shopping malls in the North Kantō region, Bell Mall. Industrial manufacturing accounts for 36. 6% of the total output. Vehicle parts and accessories are the products, followed by vehicles, radios and televisions, pharmaceuticals
6.
Ibaraki Prefecture
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Ibaraki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan, located in the Kantō region on the main island of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture was previously known as Hitachi Province, in 1871, the name of the province became Ibaraki. It also has a border on the southwest with Saitama Prefecture, the northernmost part of the prefecture is mountainous, but most of the prefecture is a flat plain with many lakes. As of 1 April 2012, 15% of the land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks, namely Suigo-Tsukuba Quasi-National Park. The Hitachi company was founded in the Ibaraki city of the same name, as of March 2011, the prefecture produced 25% of Japans bell peppers and Chinese cabbage. Ibarakis population is increasing modestly as the Greater Tokyo region spreads out, Ibaraki is known for nattō, or fermented soybeans, in Mito, watermelons in Kyōwa, and chestnuts in the Nishiibaraki region. Ibaraki is famous for the art of Aikido founded by Ueshiba Morihei. Ueshiba spent the part of his life in the town of Iwama, now part of Kasama. There are castle ruins in many cities, including Mito, Kasama, Kasama is famous for Shinto, art culture and pottery. The capital Mito is home to Kairakuen, one of Japans three most celebrated gardens, and famous for its over 3,000 Japanese plum trees of over 100 varieties, however, the correct pronunciation is Ibaraki. According to the author of Not Ibaragi, Ibaraki, this is most likely due to a mishearing of the softening of the k sound in Ibaraki dialect. Official Ibaraki Prefecture homepage The E-Ibaraki Report, articles and commentary of foreigners living in Ibaraki, produced by the International Affairs Division, Ibaraki Prefecture Ibaraki Japan
7.
Tokyo
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Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan and one of its 47 prefectures. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government, Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868, Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. The Tokyo metropolitan government administers the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo, the metropolitan government also administers 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the wards is over 9 million people. The prefecture is part of the worlds most populous metropolitan area with upwards of 37.8 million people, the city hosts 51 of the Fortune Global 500 companies, the highest number of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked third in the International Financial Centres Development IndexEdit, the city is also home to various television networks such as Fuji TV, Tokyo MX, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, Nippon Television, NHK and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Tokyo ranked first in the Global Economic Power Index and fourth in the Global Cities Index. The city is considered a world city – as listed by the GaWCs 2008 inventory – and in 2014. In 2015, Tokyo was named the Most Liveable City in the world by the magazine Monocle, the Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked first in the world in the Safe Cities Index, the 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the 3rd-best city in the world to be a university student. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1979 G-7 summit, the 1986 G-7 summit, and the 1993 G-7 summit, and will host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tokyo was originally known as Edo, which means estuary. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called Tōkei, some surviving official English documents use the spelling Tokei. However, this pronunciation is now obsolete, the name Tokyo was first suggested in 1813 in the book Kondō Hisaku, written by Satō Nobuhiro. When Ōkubo Toshimichi proposed the renaming to the government during the Meiji Restoration, according to Oda Kanshi, Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the twelfth century
8.
Chiba Prefecture
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Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region and the Greater Tokyo Area. The sixth most populous prefecture, and 27th largest by area, Chiba is on the east coast of Honshu and largely consists of the Bōsō Peninsula. The name of Chiba Prefecture in Japanese is formed from two kanji characters, the first, 千, means thousand and the second, 葉 means leaves. The name first appears as an ancient kuni no miyatsuko, or regional command office, the name was adopted by a branch of the Taira clan, which moved to the area in present-day Chiba City in the late Heian period. The branch of the Taira adopted the name and became the Chiba clan and this compound is used in terms such as the Keiyō Line, Keiyō Road, Keiyō Rinkai Railway Rinkai Main Line, and the Keiyō Industrial Zone. Chiba Prefecture was settled in times, as evidenced by the Jōmon period remains in every part of the region. The prefecture holds the largest kaizuka sea shell mounds in Japan, evidence of a population in the prefecture that relied on the rich marine products of the Pacific Ocean. Kofun burial mounds are found across the prefecture, with the largest group being in Futtsu along Tokyo Bay, in the Asuka period, under the Taika Reform of 645, the administrative structure of present-day Chiba Prefecture changed significantly. Awa Province at the south of Chiba Prefecture, was separated from Kazusa Prefecture in 718 and these administrative units existed until they were abolished and merged into Chiba Prefecture after the Meiji restoration. The central government established a provincial temple in each province. The imperial court gradually extended its authority over the three provinces in the Nara and Heian periods, shōen feudal estates were established across the three provinces, and the region became an important source of tax revenue, agricultural and other products to the capital in Kyoto. As the Heian period progressed, however, the provincial governors came to exert military power independent of the central government in Kyoto. The Chiba clan broke entirely with the court and was instrumental in the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate. Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15,1873 with the merger of Kisarazu Prefecture, the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake caused widespread destruction in Chiba Prefecture, notably in the southernmost part of the Bōsō Peninsula, where 1,300 residents were killed. Koreans in several neighborhoods of Yachiyo were killed, and a tower was erected in 1972 near Yachiyodai Station to memorialize those killed in the incident, the militarization of Chiba Prefecture dates to the Russo-Japanese War. Coastal fortifications were built along Tokyo Bay as far south as Tateyama to protect the capital of the Japanese Empire from attack, after the United States took control of Saipan the northern part of the prefecture, most notably the city of Chiba and Chōshi, were firebombed. Much of the north of the prefecture was destroyed. Operation Coronet, one of two parts of Operation Downfall, was the land invasion of Tokyo in March 1946 by the United States
9.
Kanagawa Prefecture
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Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture located in southern Kantō region of Japan. The capital of the prefecture is Yokohama, Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area. Kanagawa Prefecture is home to Kamakura and Hakone, two highly popular side trip destinations from Tokyo, the prefecture has some archaeological sites going back to the Jōmon period. About 3,000 years ago, Mount Hakone produced an explosion which resulted in Lake Ashi on the western area of the prefecture. It is believed that the Yamato dynasty ruled this area from the 5th century onwards, in the ancient era, its plains were very sparsely inhabited. In medieval Japan, Kanagawa was part of the provinces of Sagami, Kamakura in central Sagami was the capital of Japan during the Kamakura period. During the Edo period, the part of Sagami Province was governed by the daimyō of Odawara Castle, while the eastern part was directly governed by the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo. Commodore Matthew Perry landed in Kanagawa in 1853 and 1854 and signed the Convention of Kanagawa to force open Japanese ports to the United States. Nearby Yokosuka, closer to the mouth of Tokyo Bay, developed as a port and now serves as headquarters for the U. S. 7th Fleet. After the Meiji period, many lived in Yokohama City. The Meiji Government developed the first railways in Japan, from Shinbashi to Yokohama in 1872, the epicenter of the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923 was deep beneath Izu Ōshima Island in Sagami Bay. It devastated Tokyo, the city of Yokohama, surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka. The sea receded as much as 400 metres from the shore at Manazuru Point, at Kamakura, the total death toll from earthquake, tsunami, and fire exceeded 2,000 victims. At Odawara, ninety percent of the buildings collapsed immediately, Yokohama, Kawasaki and other major cities were heavily damaged by the U. S. bombing in 1945. Casualties amounted to more than several thousand, after the war, General Douglas MacArthur, the chief commander of Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers for the Occupation of Japan, landed in Kanagawa, before moving to other areas. U. S. military bases remain in Kanagawa, including Camp Zama, Yokosuka Naval Base. In 1945, Kanagawa was the 15th most populous prefecture in Japan, in the years after the war, the prefecture underwent rapid urbanization as a part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The population as of September 1,2014, is estimated to be 9.1 million, Kanagawa became the second most populous prefecture in 2006
10.
Kamakura period
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The Kamakura period is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun, Minamoto no Yoritomo. The period is known for the emergence of the samurai, the warrior caste, the Kamakura period marks the transition to land-based economies and a concentration of advanced military technologies in the hands of a specialized fighting class. Lords required the services of vassals, who were rewarded with fiefs of their own. The fief holders exercised local military rule, once Minamoto Yoritomo had consolidated his power, he established a new government at his family home in Kamakura. He called his government a bakufu, but because he was given the ancient high military title Seii Tai-shōgun by the Emperor, Yoritomo followed the Fujiwara form of house government and had an administrative board Mandokoro, a board of retainers, and a board of inquiry. After confiscating estates in central and western Japan, he appointed stewards for the estates and constables for the provinces, as shogun, Yoritomo was both the steward and the constable general. The Kamakura shogunate was not a regime, however, and although it controlled large tracts of land. The regime continued warfare against the Northern Fujiwara, but never brought either the north or the west under complete military control, however, the 4th leader of the Northern Fujiwara Fujiwara no Yasuhira was defeated by Yoritomo in 1189, and the 100-year-long prosperity of the north disappeared. The old court resided in Kyoto, continuing to hold the land over which it had jurisdiction, despite a strong beginning, Yoritomo failed to consolidate the leadership of his family on a lasting basis. Intrafamily contention had long existed within the Minamoto, although Yoritomo had eliminated most serious challengers to his authority. When he died suddenly in 1199, his son Minamoto no Yoriie became shogun and nominal head of the Minamoto, but Yoriie was unable to control the other eastern warrior families. By the early century, a regency had been established for the shogun by Hōjō Tokimasa—a member of the Hōjō clan. Often the Shikken was also the Tokuso and Rensho, under the Hōjō, the shogun became a powerless figurehead. The Hōjō forces easily won the war, and the court was brought under the direct control of the shogunate. The shoguns constables gained greater powers, and the court was obliged to seek Kamakuras approval for all of its actions. Although deprived of power, the court retained extensive estates. Several significant administrative achievements were made during the Hōjō regency, in 1225 the third regent Hōjō Yasutoki established the Council of State, providing opportunities for other military lords to exercise judicial and legislative authority at Kamakura. The Hōjō regent presided over the council, which was a form of collective leadership
11.
Edo period
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The Edo period or Tokugawa period is the period between 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the countrys 300 regional daimyō. The period was characterized by growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies. The shogunate was established in Edo on March 24,1603. The period came to an end with the Meiji Restoration on May 3,1868, instrumental in the rise of the new bakufu was Tokugawa Ieyasu, the main beneficiary of the achievements of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Already powerful, Ieyasu profited by his transfer to the rich Kantō area, after Hideyoshis death, Ieyasu moved quickly to seize control from the Toyotomi family. Ieyasus victory over the western daimyōs at the Battle of Sekigahara gave him control of all Japan. He rapidly abolished numerous enemy daimyō houses, reduced others, such as that of the Toyotomi, Ieyasu still failed to achieve complete control of the western daimyōs, but his assumption of the title of shogun helped consolidate the alliance system. After further strengthening his base, Ieyasu installed his son Hidetada as shogun. The Toyotomi were still a significant threat, and Ieyasu devoted the next decade to their eradication, in 1615, the Tokugawa army destroyed the Toyotomi stronghold at Osaka. The Tokugawa period brought 250 years of stability to Japan, the political system evolved into what historians call bakuhan, a combination of the terms bakufu and han to describe the government and society of the period. In the bakuhan, the shogun had national authority and the daimyōs had regional authority and this represented a new unity in the feudal structure, which featured an increasingly large bureaucracy to administer the mixture of centralized and decentralized authorities. The feudal hierarchy was completed by the classes of daimyō. Closest to the Tokugawa house were the shinpan, or related houses and they were twenty-three daimyōs on the borders of Tokugawa lands, all directly related to Ieyasu. The shinpan held mostly honorary titles and advisory posts in the bakufu, the second class of the hierarchy were the fudai, or house daimyōs, rewarded with lands close to the Tokugawa holdings for their faithful service. By the 18th century,145 fudai controlled such smaller han, members of the fudai class staffed most of the major bakufu offices. Ninety-seven han formed the group, the tozama, former opponents or new allies. The tozama were located mostly on the peripheries of the archipelago, because the tozama were least trusted of the daimyō, they were the most cautiously managed and generously treated, although they were excluded from central government positions. The Tokugawa not only consolidated their control over a reunified Japan, they also had unprecedented power over the emperor, the court, all daimyōs and the religious orders
This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies document "Kanto".
