1.
Prefectures of Japan
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The Prefectures of Japan consist of 47 prefectures. They form the first level of jurisdiction and administrative division of Japan and they consist of 43 prefectures proper, two urban prefectures, one circuit or territory and one metropolis. The Meiji Fuhanken sanchisei administration created the first prefectures to replace the provinces of Japan in 1868, each prefectures chief executive is a directly-elected governor. Ordinances and budgets are enacted by an assembly whose members are elected for four-year terms. Under the current Local Autonomy Law, each prefecture is subdivided into cities and districts and each district into towns, for example, Hokkaido has 14 subprefectures that act as branch offices of the prefecture. Some other prefectures also have offices that carry out prefectural administrative functions outside the capital. Tokyo, the capital of Japan, is a merged city-prefecture, the Wests use of prefecture to label these Japanese regions stems from 16th-century Portuguese explorers and traders use of prefeitura to describe the fiefdoms they encountered there. Its original sense in Portuguese, however, was closer to municipality than province and those fiefs were headed by a local warlord or family. Though the fiefs have long since been dismantled, merged, and reorganized multiple times, and been granted legislative governance and oversight, the Meiji government established the current system in July 1871 with the abolition of the Han system and establishment of the prefecture system. Although there were initially over 300 prefectures, many of them being former Han territories, this number was reduced to 72 in the part of 1871. The Local Autonomy Law of 1947 gave more power to prefectures. In 2003, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed that the government consolidate the current prefectures into about 10 regional states, the plan called for each region to have greater autonomy than existing prefectures. This process would reduce the number of administrative regions and cut administrative costs. As of August 2012, no reorganization has been scheduled, the central government delegates many functions to the prefectures and municipalities, but retains the overall right to control them. Although local government expenditure accounts for 70 percent of government expenditure, the central government controls local budgets, tax rates. Historically, during the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate established bugyō-ruled zones around the nine largest cities in Japan, and 302 township-ruled zones elsewhere. When the Meiji government began to create the system in 1868, the nine bugyō-ruled zones became fu, while the township-ruled zones. Later, in 1871, the government designated Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto as fu, during World War II, in 1943, Tokyo became a to, a new type of pseudo-prefecture
2.
Japanese language
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Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic language family, whose relation to language groups, particularly to Korean. Little is known of the prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, during the Heian period, Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese saw changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region in the Early Modern Japanese period. Following the end in 1853 of Japans self-imposed isolation, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, English loanwords in particular have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person, Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener. Japanese has no relationship with Chinese, but it makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji, in its writing system. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system uses two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. Latin script is used in a fashion, such as for imported acronyms. Very little is known about the Japanese of this period, Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language. Through the spread of Buddhism, the Chinese writing system was imported to Japan, the earliest texts found in Japan are written in Classical Chinese, but they may have been meant to be read as Japanese by the kanbun method. Some of these Chinese texts show the influences of Japanese grammar, in these hybrid texts, Chinese characters are also occasionally used phonetically to represent Japanese particles. The earliest text, the Kojiki, dates to the early 8th century, the end of Old Japanese coincides with the end of the Nara period in 794
3.
Romanization of Japanese
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The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is referred to in English as rōmaji. There are several different romanization systems, the three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki romanization, and Nihon-shiki romanization. Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used, Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Chinese and syllabic scripts which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English on topics related to Japan, such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, all Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. The word rōmaji literally means Roman letters, and in Japan it is often used to refer to the Latin alphabet itself than to any specific form of romanized Japanese. The earliest Japanese romanization system was based on the Portuguese orthography and it was developed around 1548 by a Japanese Catholic named Yajiro. Jesuit priests used the system in a series of printed Catholic books so that missionaries could preach and teach their converts without learning to read Japanese orthography. The most useful of these books for the study of early modern Japanese pronunciation and early attempts at romanization was the Nippo jisho, in general, the early Portuguese system was similar to Nihon-shiki in its treatment of vowels. The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity in Japan, the Hepburn system included representation of some sounds that have since changed. The Nihon-shiki romanization was an outgrowth of that movement, several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but it failed to catch on. Today, the use of Nihon-shiki for writing Japanese is advocated by the Oomoto sect, during the Allied occupation of Japan, the government of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers made it official policy to romanize Japanese. However, that failed and a more moderate attempt at Japanese script reform followed. Hepburn romanization generally follows English phonology with Romance vowels and it is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in the USA as American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese, Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world. The Revised Hepburn system of romanization uses a macron to indicate long vowels. For example, the name じゅんいちろう, is written with the kana characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, without the apostrophe, it would not be possible to distinguish this correct reading from the incorrect ju-ni-chi-ro-u
4.
Okinawan language
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Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages have been designated as endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger since its launch in February 2009. Within Japan, Okinawan is often not seen as a language itself but is referred to as the Okinawan dialect or more specifically the Central. Okinawan speakers are undergoing language shift as they switch to Japanese, Okinawan is still spoken by many older people. It is also alive in popular music, tourist shows, and in theaters featuring a local drama called uchinaa shibai. Pre-Ryukyu Kingdom Okinawan is a Japonic language, derived from Old Japanese, the split between Old Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages has been estimated to have occurred as early as the first century AD to as late as the twelfth century AD. Chinese and Japanese characters were first introduced by a Japanese missionary in 1265, Ryukyu Kingdom Era Pre-Satsuma Hiragana was much more popular than kanji, poems were commonly written solely in hiragana or with little kanji. Post-Satsuma to Annexation After Ryukyu became a vassal of Satsuma Domain, kanji gained more prominence in poetry, Japanese Annexation to End of World War II When Ryukyu was annexed by Japan in 1879, the majority of people on Okinawa Island spoke Okinawan. Within ten years, the Japanese government began a policy of Japanization. The education system was the heart of Japanization, where Okinawan children were taught Japanese and punished for speaking their native language, by 1945, many Okinawans spoke Japanese, and many were bilingual. During the Battle of Okinawa, some Okinawans were killed by Japanese soldiers for speaking Okinawan, American Occupation Under American administration, there was an attempt to revive and standardize Okinawan, however this proved difficult and was shelved in favor of Japanese. There have been attempts to revive Okinawan by notable people such as Byron Fija and Seijin Noborikawa, Okinawan is sometimes grouped with Kunigami as the Okinawan languages, however some linguists dont use this grouping or claim that Kunigami is a dialect of Okinawan. Okinawan is also grouped with Amami as the Northern Ryukyuan languages, dialect of the Japanese language Since the creation of Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawan was labeled a dialect of Japanese as part of a policy of assimilation. Later, Japanese linguists, such as Tōjō Misao, who studied the Ryukyuan languages argued that they are indeed dialects and this is due to the misconception that Japan is a homogeneous state, and classifying the Ryukyuan languages as such would discredit this belief. The policy of assimilation, coupled with increased interaction between Japan and Okinawa through media and economics, has led to the development of Okinawan Japanese, dialect of the Ryukyuan language Okinawan linguist Seizen Nakasone states that the Ryukyuan languages are in fact groupings of similar dialects. As each community has its own dialect, there is no one language. Nakasone attributes this diversity to the isolation caused by immobility, citing the story of his mother who wanted to visit the town of Nago and its own distinct language Outside Japan, Okinawan is considered a separate language from Japanese. This was first proposed by Basil Hall Chamberlain, who compared the relationship between Okinawan and Japanese to that of the Romance languages, UNESCO has marked it as an endangered language
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
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
7.
Kyushu
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Kyushu is the third biggest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternative ancient names include Kyūkoku, Chinzei, and Tsukushi-no-shima, the historical regional name Saikaidō referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands. In the 8th century Taihō Code reforms, Dazaifu was established as an administrative term for the region. As of 2016, Kyushu has a population of 12,970,479, the island is mountainous, and Japans most active volcano, Mt Aso at 1,591 metres, is on Kyushu. There are many signs of tectonic activity, including numerous areas of hot springs. The most famous of these are in Beppu, on the east shore, the island is separated from Honshu by the Kanmon Straits. The name Kyūshū comes from the nine ancient provinces of Saikaidō situated on the island, Chikuzen, Chikugo, Hizen, Higo, Buzen, Bungo, Hyūga, Osumi, excepting Oita and Miyazaki cities, the eastern seaboard shows a general decline in population. Designated cities Fukuoka Kitakyushu Kumamoto Core cities Kagoshima Ōita Nagasaki Miyazaki Naha Kurume Parts of Kyushu have a climate, particularly Miyazaki. Major agricultural products are rice, tea, tobacco, sweet potatoes, the island is noted for various types of porcelain, including Arita, Imari, Satsuma, and Karatsu. Heavy industry is concentrated in the north around Fukuoka, Kitakyushu, Nagasaki, and Oita and includes chemicals, automobiles, semiconductors, in 2010, the graduate employment rate in the region was the lowest nationwide, at 88. 9%. Besides the volcanic area of the south, there are significant mud hot springs in the part of the island, around Beppu. These springs are the site of occurrence of certain extremophile micro-organisms, the Kanmon Bridge also connects the island with Honshu. Railways on the island are operated by the Kyushu Railway Company, and Nishitetsu Railway
8.
Sakishima Islands
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The Sakishima Islands are an archipelago located at the southernmost end of the Japanese Archipelago. They are part of the Ryukyu Islands and include the Miyako Islands, the islands are administered as part of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Shigaki is believed to be the current Ishigaki, Kumi to be the current Kume or Komi settlement of Iriomote, the History of Yuan documented a castaway from Mìyágǔ arrived to Wenzhou in 1317. This is believed to be the first documentation of Miyako, stone tools and shell tools from 2,500 years ago have been excavated from shell mounds on the Sakishima Islands. Shell tools of the era are also found in Taiwan and the Philippines. Thus those islands are thought to have had a stronger or closer cultural relationship with Taiwan, the Philippines, local earthenware was made beginning in the 11th century. Many local leaders, known as aji, appeared in the 15th century, at the same time, the political authorities on Okinawa saw the outlying islands as useful stopping points along a maritime trade route, and gradually enhanced their influence. Yohanashiidu Tuyumya unified Miyako in 1365, and paid tribute to Satto, in 1500, Oyake Akahachi, Aji of Ishigaki, unified most of the Yaeyama Islands and rose up in resistance against the Ryukyu Kingdom by refusing to pay further tribute. As he was planning to invade Miyako, Nakasone Tuyumya, Aji of Miyako, discovered the plan, Oyake Akahachi was defeated at Furusutobaru Castle, and Nakasone Tuyumya went on to conquer Yonaguni. King Shō Shin of Ryukyu responded to the rebellion by sending troops. The Ryukyuan army consisted of 3,000 soldiers and 100 ships, the Shimazu clan of the Japanese feudal domain of Satsuma invaded the kingdom during the 1609 Invasion of Ryukyu. Satsuma was able to capture Shuri Castle and King Shō Nei by early May, then sent a message to the Sakishima Islands demanding their surrender, which they complied with. In the following centuries of vassalage to Satsuma, the Ryukyuan government was placed under extreme tax pressure, Yaeyama islanders were taxed even more heavily than those of Miyako, as the rebel Oyake Akahachi was from Yaeyama. The kingdom prohibited migration of islanders, isolating them to prevent group resistance, the Yaeyama earthquake in 1771 caused a tsunami which killed 12,000, or a half of the entire Sakishima population. Because the soil was adversely affected by salination, famines were frequent, after the Meiji Restoration, in 1872, the Japanese government unilaterally declared that the Ryukyu Kingdom was then Ryukyu Domain and began incorporating the islands as a part of Japan. In 1879, after the Ryukyuan government resisted and disobeyed orders from Tokyo, Japan abolished the domain, deposed the king, the Qing Dynasty of China, however, opposed the action, claiming sovereignty over the former kingdom. Japan proposed to cede the Sakishima Islands, provided China add most favored nation status of Japan to the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Amity, China agreed at first, but after objections from Viceroy Li Hongzhang, the agreement was not made. China effectively conceded its claims to sovereignty over Ryukyu, including the Sakishima Islands, the modernization of Sakishima by the Japanese government was slow compared with Japan or even Okinawa
9.
Naha
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Naha is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the most southern prefecture of Japan. As of December 2012, the city has an population of 321,467. The total area is 38.99 km², Naha is a city on the East China Sea coast of the southern part of Okinawa Island, the largest of Okinawa Prefecture. The modern city was founded on May 20,1921. Before that Naha had been for one of the most important. Naha is the political, economic and education center of Okinawa Prefecture, in the medieval and early modern periods, it was the commercial center of the Ryūkyū Kingdom. Kokusai-dōri boasts a 1.6 kilometre long stretch of stores, restaurants, Kokusai-dōri ends at the main bus terminal in Okinawa and is served by several stations along the Okinawa Monorail, the only train system in the prefecture. Just outside the area is the neighborhood of Tsuboya, which was once a major center of ceramic production. Northeast of Kokusai-dōri is a new commercial district called Shintoshin. The area, formerly United States military housing, was released to Okinawa in 1987, frequented by young people, the area boasts large stores such as Toys R Us and Best Denki, a co-op market, many restaurants and a movie theater. The Okinawa Prefectural Museum, containing sections devoted to the art, history, according to the Irosetsuden, the name of Naha comes from its original name, Naba, which was the name of a large, mushroom-shaped stone in the city. Gradually, the stone away and became buried, and the names pronunciation. In Naha, some relics of the Stone Age were found. From a Jōmon period kaizuka, ancient Chinese coins were found, pottery found by archaeologists indicates that the area was an active site of trade with the Japanese archipelago and Korean peninsula at least as early as the 11th century. Though it is not known just when the area first became organized as a port city. Medieval Naha was on an island called Ukishima, connected to the mainland of Okinawa Island by a narrow causeway called Chōkōtei which led on to Shuri. The main port area for trade, Naha proper, was divided into the East and West districts and was on the southwestern portion of Ukishima. A large open-air marketplace was active in front of the government trading center
10.
Districts of Japan
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As of 2008, cities belong directly to prefectures and are independent from districts. In Japan, towns and villages belong to districts and the districts possess little to no administrative authority, the districts are used primarily in the Japanese addressing system and to identify the relevant geographical areas and collections of nearby towns and villages. The district was initially called kōri and has ancient roots in Japan, although the Nihon Shoki says they were established during the Taika Reforms, kōri was originally written 評. It was not until the Taihō Code that kōri came to be written 郡, under the Taihō Code, the administrative unit of province was above district, and the village was below. Each jurisdiction refers to its position along the river from which the former province. Kamikawa means upper course of the river, Nakagawa means middle course, jacobs at Urban Studies Research, Vol.2011, doi,10. 1155/2011/692764 Graphic shows relationships among Japanese cities at p.7 of Large City System of Japan Text of the Local Government Law
11.
Municipalities of Japan
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Japan has three levels of government, national, prefectural, and municipal. The nation is divided into 47 prefectures, each prefecture consists of numerous municipalities, with 1,719 in total. There are four types of municipalities in Japan, cities, towns, villages, in Japanese, this system is known as shikuchōson, where each kanji in the word represents one of the four types of municipalities. The status of a municipality, if it is a village, the least-populated city, Utashinai, Hokkaidō, has a population of merely four thousand, while a town in the same prefecture, Otofuke, Hokkaidō, has nearly forty thousand residents. Some designated cities also have further administrative subdivisions, also known as wards, but, unlike the Special wards of Tokyo, these wards are not municipalities. Tokyo Prefecture now encompasses 23 special wards, each a city itself, as well as many other cities, towns and even villages on the Japanese mainland. Each of the 23 special wards of Tokyo is legally equivalent to a city, for information on the former city of Tokyo, see Tokyo City, for information about present-day Tokyo Prefecture, see Tokyo. See List of cities in Japan for a complete list of cities, see also, Core city The same kanji which designates a town is also sometimes used for addresses of sections of an urban area. In rare cases, a village might even contain a section with the same type of designation. Although the kanji is the same, neither of these sections are municipalities unto themselves. Subprefectures are branch offices of the prefectures and not municipalities by themselves, districts are not current municipalities but names of groups of towns and villages. Provinces are not current municipalities but names of geographical regions similar to prefectures
12.
Erythrina variegata
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E. variegata is a thorny deciduous tree growing to 27 m tall. The leaves are pinnate with a 20 cm petiole and three leaflets, each leaflet up to 20 cm long and broad and it has dense clusters of scarlet or crimson flowers and black seeds. E. variegata is valued as an ornamental tree, several cultivars have been selected, including Alba with white flowers. In Vietnam, the leaves are used to wrap fermented meat, Erythrina variegata is known as dapdap in the Philippines where its bark and leaves are used in alternative medicine. In Siddha medicine, it is used especially for menstrual disorders, E. variegata was designated the official flower of Okinawa Prefecture in 1967. The deigo flower features in the popular song Shima Uta by The Boom, in addition, the use of the wood of the deigo tree is one of the unique characteristics of Ryukyuan lacquerware. Media related to Erythrina variegata at Wikimedia Commons Elevitch, Craig R. W. Arthur Whistler, flowers of India - Indian Coral Tree
13.
Okinawa woodpecker
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The Okinawa woodpecker, is a woodpecker endemic to the island of Okinawa in Japan. It was previously placed in the monotypic genus Sapheopipo, other common names for this species are Noguchis woodpecker, Okinawan woodpecker, Pryers woodpecker and Ryukyu woodpecker. Some taxonomic authorities place this species in the monotypic genus Sapheopipo and this is a medium-sized, dark woodpecker. It is dark brown in color with red-tipped feathers and it has white spots on the primaries. The head is a brown, with a dark red crown on the male. The call is a sharp call and a variable kyu-kyu kup kup kup or kyu kyu kup. Their breeding habitat is subtropical, evergreen broad-leaved forest that is at least 30 years old, nesting is between late February and May. It has a tiny, declining population which is threatened by habitat loss of mature forest due to logging, dam construction, agriculture, military. A major problem now is one of their main habitats is being destroyed. The current population is estimated at less than 600 and this species is suspected to be declining at a rate of 10-19% over ten years, as a result of ongoing clearance of old-growth forests. This woodpecker is legally protected in Japan, in 1996, Yambaru was designated as a national park. The habitat of the Okinawa woodpecker is threatened by the construction of six new American helipads in the Yanbaru forest of Takae, the lives of the birds themselves are also put at risk by the flights of Ospreys over the island. BirdLife Species Factsheet Image and Classification at Animal Diversity Web Sapheopipo noguchii in the Flickr, Field Guide Birds of the World
14.
Hepburn romanization
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The system was originally proposed by the Romanization Club in 1885. The revised edition by Romaji-Hirome-kai in 1908 is called standard style romanization, Hepburn is based on English phonology and has competed with the alternative Nihon-shiki romanization, which was developed in Japan as a replacement of Japanese script. In 1930, a Special Romanization Study Commission was appointed to compare the two, the ordinance was temporarily overturned by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers during the Occupation of Japan, but was reissued in 1954. In 1972, a version of Hepburn was codified as ANSI standard Z39. 11-1972. It was proposed in 1989 as a draft for ISO3602, the ANSI Z39. 11-1972 standard was consequently deprecated on October 6,1994. As of 1978, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, in addition The Japan Times, the Japan Travel Bureau, and many other private organizations used Hepburn instead of Kunrei-shiki. The National Diet Library used Kunrei-shiki, although Hepburn is not a government standard, some government agencies mandate it. In many other areas where it de jure status, Hepburn remains the de facto standard. Signs and notices in city offices and police stations, at shrines, temples, English-language newspapers and media use the simplified form of Hepburn. Cities and prefectures use it in information for English-speaking residents and visitors, official tourism information put out by the government uses it, as do guidebooks, local and foreign, on Japan. Many students of Japanese as a foreign language learn Hepburn, there are many variants of Hepburn romanization. The two most common styles are, Traditional Hepburn, as defined in various editions of Hepburns dictionary and this variant is characterized by the rendering of syllabic n as m before the consonants b, m and p, e. g. Shimbashi for 新橋. Modified Hepburn, also known as Revised Hepburn, in which the rendering of syllabic n as m before certain consonants is no longer used, in Japan itself, there are some variants officially mandated for various uses, Railway Standard, which follows the Hyōjun-shiki Rōmaji. All JR railways and other major railways use this type for station names, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Standard, which follows the modified Hepburn style. This is used for road signs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Passport Standard, a permissive standard which explicitly allows the use of non-Hepburn romaji in personal names, notably for passports. In particular, rendering the syllabic n as m before b, m, p, details of these variants can be found below. The romanizations set out in the first and second versions of Hepburns dictionary are primarily of historical interest, supporters argue that Hepburn is not intended as a linguistic tool. The long vowels are indicated by macrons
15.
Ryukyu Islands
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The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller ones are mostly coral islands. The largest of the islands is Okinawa, the climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate in the north to tropical rainforest climate in the south. Precipitation is very high, and is affected by the rainy season, the islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs. The Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama Islands have a native population collectively called the Ryukyuan people, the varied Ryukyuan languages are traditionally spoken on these islands, and the major islands have their own distinct languages. In modern times, the Japanese language is the language of the islands. The northern islands are called the Satsunan Islands, while the southern part of the chain are called the Ryukyu Islands in Japanese. Following are the grouping and names used by the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department of the Japan Coast Guard, the islands are listed from north to south where possible. Nansei Islands Satsunan Islands Ōsumi Islands with, Tanegashima, Yaku, Kuchinoerabu, Mageshima in the North-Eastern Group and they agreed on February 15,2010, to use Amami-guntō for the Amami Islands, prior to that, Amami-shotō had also been used. The English and Japanese uses of the term Ryukyu differ, in English, the term Ryukyu may apply to the entire chain of islands, while in Japanese Ryukyu usually refers only to the islands that were previously part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom after 1624. Nansei-shotō is the name for the whole island chain in Japanese. Japan has used the name on nautical charts since 1907, based on the Japanese charts, the international chart series uses Nansei Shoto. Nansei literally means southwest, the direction of the chain from mainland Japan. Some humanities scholars prefer the uncommon term Ryūkyū-ko for the island chain. In geology, however, the Ryukyu Arc includes subsurface structures such as the Okinawa Trough, the name of Ryūkyū is strongly associated with the Ryūkyū Kingdom, a kingdom that originated from the Okinawa Islands and subjected the Sakishima and Amami Islands. The name is considered outdated in Japanese although some entities of Okinawa still bear the name. In Japanese, the Ryukyu Islands cover only the Okinawa, Miyako, the northern half of the island chain is referred to as the Satsunan Islands in Japanese, as opposed to Northern Ryukyu Islands in English. Humanities scholars generally agree that the Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, there is, however, no good name for the group. The native population do not have their own name, since they do not recognize themselves as a group this size, Ryukyu is the principal candidate because it roughly corresponds to the maximum extent of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
16.
Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
17.
Okinawa Island
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Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. The island is approximately 70 miles long and an average 7 miles wide and it is roughly 640 kilometres south of the rest of Japan, roughly the same distance off the coast of China, and 500 km north of Taiwan. Okinawa has been a strategic location for the United States Armed Forces since the end of World War II. The island hosts around 26,000 US military personnel, about half of the complement of the United States Forces Japan. Okinawa contains 96% of the US military stationed in Japan, US bases in Okinawa played critical roles in the Korean War, Vietnam War, War in Afghanistan and Iraq War. The presence of the US military in Okinawa has caused controversy both on the island and elsewhere in Japan. The time when human beings first appeared in Okinawa remains unknown, Early Okinawan history is defined by midden or shell heap culture, and is divided into Early, Middle, and Late Shell Mound periods. The Early Shell Mound period was a society, with wave-like opening Jomon pottery. In the latter part of period, archaeological sites moved near the seashore. In Okinawa, rice was not cultivated until the Middle Shell Mound period, Shell rings for arms made of shells obtained in the Sakishima Islands, namely Miyakojima and Yaeyama islands, were imported by Japan. In these islands, the presence of shell axes,2500 years ago, after the Late Shell Mound period, agriculture started about the 12th century, with the center moving from the seashore to higher places. This period is called the Gusuku period, Gusuku is the term used for the distinctive Ryukyuan form of castles or fortresses. Many gusukus and related cultural remains in the Ryukyu Islands have been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites under the title Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu. There are three perspectives regarding the nature of gusukus, 1) a holy place, 2) dwellings encircled by stones, in this period, porcelain trade between Okinawa and other countries became busy, and Okinawa became an important relay point in eastern-Asian trade. Ryukyuan kings, such as Shunten and Eiso, were important rulers, an attempted Mongolian invasion in 1291 during the Eiso Dynasty ended in failure. Hiragana was imported from Japan by Ganjin in 1265, noro, village priestesses of the Ryukyuan religion, appeared. The Sanzan period began in 1314, when the kingdoms of Hokuzan and Nanzan declared independence from Chūzan, the three kingdoms competed with one another for recognition and trade with Ming China. King Satto, leading Chūzan, was successful, establishing relations with Korea
18.
History of the Ryukyu Islands
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This article is about the history of the Ryukyu Islands southwest of the main islands of Japan. The name Ryūkyū originates from Chinese writings, the earliest references to Ryūkyū write the name as 琉虬 and 流求 in the Chinese history Book of Sui in 607. It is a name, meaning glazed horn-dragon. The origin of the term Okinawa remains unclear, although Okinawa as a term was used in Okinawa, there was also a divine woman named Uchinaa in the book Omoro Sōshi, a compilation of ancient poems and songs from Okinawa Island. This suggests the presence of a place named Okinawa. The Chinese monk Jianzhen, who traveled to Japan in the mid-8th century CE to promote Buddhism, the Japanese map series Ryukyu Kuniezu labeled the island as 悪鬼納 in 1644. The current Chinese characters for Okinawa were first written in the 1702 version of Ryukyu Kuniezu, the ancestry of the modern-day Ryukyuan people is disputed. The time when human beings appeared in Okinawa remains unknown, the earliest human bones were those of Yamashita Cave Man, about 32 000 years ago, followed by Pinza-Abu Cave Man, Miyakojima, about 26 000 years ago and Minatogawa Man, about 18 000 years ago. Of them, perfect bodies were excavated of the Minatogawa man and they probably came through China and were once considered to be the direct ancestors of those living in Okinawa. No stone tools were discovered with them, for the following 12 000 years, no trace of archaeological sites was discovered after the Minatogawa man site. However, the use of Jōmon and Yayoi of Japan is questionable in Okinawa, in the former, it was a hunter-gatherer society, with wave-like opening Jōmon pottery. In the latter part of Jomon period, archaeological sites moved near the seashore, in Okinawa, rice was not cultivated during the Yayoi period but began during the latter period of shell-heap age. Shell rings for arms made of shells obtained in the Sakishima Islands, in these islands, the presence of shell axes,2500 years ago, suggests the influence of a southeastern-Pacific culture. The first history of Ryukyu was written in Chūzan Seikan, which was compiled by Shō Shōken, the Ryukyuan creation myth is told, which includes the establishment of Tenson as the first king of the islands and the creation of the Noro, female priestesses of the Ryukyuan religion. The throne was usurped from one of Tensons descendants by a man named Riyu, Chūzan Seikan then tells the story of a Japanese samurai, Minamoto no Tametomo, who fought in the Hogen Rebellion of 1156 and fled first to Izu Island and then to Okinawa. He had relations with the sister of the Aji of Ōzato and sired Shunten, most historians, however, discount the Tametomo story as a revisionist history that is intended to legitimize Japanese domination over Okinawa. Shuntens dynasty ended in the third generation when his grandson, Gihon, abdicated, went into exile, and was succeeded by Eiso, the Eiso dynasty continued for five generations. Gusuku is the used for the distinctive Okinawan form of castles or fortresses
19.
Anno Domini
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The terms anno Domini and before Christ are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term anno Domini is Medieval Latin and means in the year of the Lord, There is no year zero in this scheme, so the year AD1 immediately follows the year 1 BC. This dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus of Scythia Minor, the Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world today. Traditionally, English followed Latin usage by placing the AD abbreviation before the year number, however, BC is placed after the year number, which also preserves syntactic order. The abbreviation is widely used after the number of a century or millennium. Because BC is the English abbreviation for Before Christ, it is sometimes concluded that AD means After Death. However, this would mean that the approximate 33 years commonly associated with the life of Jesus would not be included in either of the BC, astronomical year numbering and ISO8601 avoid words or abbreviations related to Christianity, but use the same numbers for AD years. The Anno Domini dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus to enumerate the years in his Easter table. His system was to replace the Diocletian era that had used in an old Easter table because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians. The last year of the old table, Diocletian 247, was followed by the first year of his table. Thus Dionysius implied that Jesus Incarnation occurred 525 years earlier, without stating the year during which his birth or conception occurred. Blackburn & Holford-Strevens briefly present arguments for 2 BC,1 BC, There were inaccuracies in the list of consuls There were confused summations of emperors regnal years It is not known how Dionysius established the year of Jesuss birth. It is convenient to initiate a calendar not from the day of an event. For example, the Islamic calendar begins not from the date of the Hegira, at the time, it was believed by some that the Resurrection and end of the world would occur 500 years after the birth of Jesus. The old Anno Mundi calendar theoretically commenced with the creation of the based on information in the Old Testament. It was believed that, based on the Anno Mundi calendar, Anno Mundi 6000 was thus equated with the resurrection and the end of the world but this date had already passed in the time of Dionysius. The Anglo-Saxon historian the Venerable Bede, who was familiar with the work of Dionysius Exiguus, used Anno Domini dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. e. On the continent of Europe, Anno Domini was introduced as the era of choice of the Carolingian Renaissance by the English cleric and scholar Alcuin in the late eighth century
20.
Sanzan period
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The Sanzan Period is a period in the history of the Okinawa Islands when three polities, namely Hokuzan, Chūzan and Nanzan, are said to have co-existed on Okinawa. It is said to have started during King Tamagusukus reign and, according to Sai Ons edition of the Chūzan Seifu, historical records of the period are fragmentary and mutually conflicting. Some even question the co-existence of the three polities, Okinawa does not have their own contemporary records of the Sanzan period. Contemporary sources are limited to Chinese and, to a far lesser extent and they are in a fragmentary fashion and probably overshadowed by diplomatic fictions. Since the Chinese sources simply records local rulers who contacted China, for this reason, Okinawas real situation remains largely a mystery. According to the Veritable Records of the Ming, the newly formed Ming dynasty sent an envoy to what it called the State of Ryūkyū, among other countries. In response, a ruler who was referred to as Satto, King of Chūzan, in 1380, the King of Nanzan Ofusato sent a mission to Ming China, which was followed by the King of Hokuzan Haniji in 1383. The names of Hokuzan and Nanzan are apparently Chūzan-centric and it is not clear who coined these names. Ming Chinas perception of the co-existence of the Sanzan can be found in an article of 1383 of the Veritable Records, the Ming considered that there were three rulers in the region who engaged in conflict. It recognized them as kings and called for peace, as for the King of Hokuzan, the Veritable Records record the un-Okinawan-looking names of three kings, Haniji, Min and Hananchi, but make no mention of their blood relations. The last diplomatic contact of Hokuzan was of 1416, the records of Nanzan are more complicated. The diplomatic missions under the name of the King of Nanzan Ofusato lasted from 1380 to 1396, an unusual characteristic of Nanzan was that the Kings fathers younger brother Ōeiji also sent envoys from 1388 to 1397. In 1403, Ououso, who claimed to be Ofusatos younger brother or cousin, in 1415, Crown Prince Taromai reported that King Ououso had been murdered by his elder brother Tafuchi. Taromais blood relationship with Ououso was not mentioned, as the King of Nanzan, Taromai sent envoys from 1416 to 1429. The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea records mysterious events about Nanzan, in 1394, the King of Chūzan Satto requested Korea to return the Nanzan Prince Ofusato, who had supposedly fled to Korea. In 1398, the King of Nanzan Oueishi fled to Korea after reportedly being banished by the King of Chūzan and he died there in the same year. These records clearly contradict with the Veritable Records, raising questions about the reliability of Okinawas diplomatic reports to foreign countries, Chūzan sent envoys to China much more frequently than Hokuzan and Nanzan. The King of Chūzan paid tribute biennially from 1372 to 1382, Chūzans missions were also unusual in that some of them were sent under the name of the crown prince although it should have been done by the king
21.
Invasion of Ryukyu
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The invasion of Ryukyu by forces of the Japanese feudal domain of Satsuma took place from March to May of 1609, and marked the beginning of the Ryukyu Kingdoms status as a vassal state under Satsuma. The invasion force was met with resistance from the Ryukyuan military on all. Ryukyu would remain a state under Satsuma, alongside its already long-established tributary relationship with China. The war was called the Disturbance of Kiyū or the Japanese Disturbance of Kiyū by the Ryukyu Kingdom, in Japanese, the war was called the Ryukyu Expansion or the Ryūkyū iri during the Edo period, and was called the Okinawa Expansion Campaign by many Japanese scholars before WWII. Satsumas invasion of Ryukyu was the climax of a tradition of relations between the kingdom and the Shimazu clan of Satsuma. King Shō Nei met some of these demands, Shō Nei sent a tribute ship, the Aya-Bune, to Satsuma in February or March,1592, and agreed to provide approximately half of his allocated burden in preparation for the invasion of Korea, in 1593. One of the events which spurred Satsuma to aggression occurred when Hideyoshi launched the first of two invasions of Korea. I exempt you from mobilization of the troops, in exchange, however, you must supply 10 months rations for 7000 troops. Sho Nei supplied only half in 1593, following Hideyoshis death in 1598, and Tokugawa Ieyasus subsequent rise to power, Shō Nei was asked by Satsuma to formally submit to the new shogunate, a request which was ignored. In 1603, some Ryukyu sailors were cast ashore on the coast of the Sendai domain, Tokugawa Ieyasu sent them back to Ryukyu. The Shimazu asked Ryukyu to thank Ieyasu again, but Ryukyu ignored the request, the Shimazu then requested to launch a punitive mission against Ryukyu. Approximately 100 ships carrying roughly 3,000 soldiers concentrated at Yamakawa harbor on March 1,1609, ichirai Magobee, who was one of them, would write a diary documenting the expedition. The fleet left harbor on March 4, under the command of Kabayama Hisataka, the Satsuma fleet arrived at Amami Ōshima on April 7, where the Amamian people did not resist, but assisted the Satsuma army. Tameten, the chief of Kasari, was a subject of Kabayama, shigetedaru, the chief of Yakiuchi, supplied the Satsuma army. On April 10, Shō Nei was informed of Satsumas landing on Amami, and he sent Ibun, the priest of Tenryu temple, to Amami in order to surrender, but Ibun missed the Satsuma army for unknown reasons. On April 16,13 Satsuma ships then left for Tokunoshima in advance, on April 17,13 ships arrived at Tokunoshima and dispersed. Two ships arrived at Kanaguma, but nothing happened, the ships were besieged all night by 1,000 people. On April 18, Satsuma troops disembarked, fired into the crowds, three ships arrived at Akitoku, and were attacked at the waters edge by the Akitoku people
22.
Ryukyu Domain
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The Ryukyu Domain was a short-lived domain of Japan, lasting from 1872 to 1879, before becoming the current Okinawa Prefecture and other islands at the Pacific edge of the East China Sea. When the domain was created in 1872, Japans feudal han system had developed in unique ways, the domain was a political and economic abstraction based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields. In other words, the domain was defined in terms of kokudaka and this was different from the feudalism of the West. In 1609, the invasion of Ryukyu caused a change in the relationship of the island nation, after 1609, the Ryukyuan kings were forced to be vassals of the Shimazu clan of Satsuma and the islands were occasionally viewed as a province of Japan. At the same time, the kingdom and its rulers remained carefully independent, the dual nature of the kingdom and its rulers was eliminated with the creation of the Ryukyu Domain which existed from 1872 through 1879. In 1872, the Emperor of Japan changed the title of Shō Tai, instead, Shō Tai became a domain head. In other words, the Ryukyu Kingdom was then recognized as a han, the former monarch and Ryukyuan aristocrats were granted lands and stipends of support in this period. The administration of the Ryukyus was established under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Ministry, after the Taiwan Expedition of 1874, Japans role as the protector of the Ryukyuan people was acknowledged, but fiction of the Ryukyu Kingdoms independence was partially maintained until 1879. In 1875, administrative jurisdiction over the Ryukyus was transferred from the Foreign Ministry to the Home Ministry, in 1879, Shō Tai was forced to abdicate and move to Tokyo, Ryukyu Domain was abolished, and Okinawa Prefecture was established. Shō Tai was given the title of Marquis and added to the list of Japans peerage, History of the Ryukyu Islands Kerr, George H. Okinawa, the History of an Island People. Ryukyu Kingdom and Province before 1945, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council. OCLC5455582 Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth
23.
Japanese militarism
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The military had a strong influence on Japanese society from the Meiji Restoration. Almost all leaders in Japanese society during the Meiji period were ex-samurai or descendants of samurai, domestic issues within early Meiji Japan also called for a strong military. The early Meiji government was threatened by internal revolts, such as the Saga Rebellion and Satsuma Rebellion, Yamagata like many Japanese was strongly influenced by the recent striking success of Prussia in transforming itself from an agricultural state to a leading modern industrial and military power. He accepted Prussian political ideas, which favored military expansion abroad, in response to a Japanese request, Prussian Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke sent Meckel to Japan to become an O-yatoi gaikokujin. In Japan, Meckel worked closely with future Prime Ministers General Katsura Tarō and General Yamagata Aritomo, a bust of Meckel was sited in front of the Japanese Army Staff College from 1909 through 1945. Although his period in Japan was relatively short, Meckel had a impact on the development of the Japanese military. He is credited with having introduced Clausewitzs military theories and the Prussian concept of war games in a process of refining tactics. With a more aggressive policy, and victory over China in the First Sino-Japanese War and over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. Due to the lack of resources in Japanese home islands, raw materials such as iron, oil, the success of Japan in securing Taiwan and Korea had brought Japan primarily agricultural colonies. In terms of resources, the Japanese military looked towards Manchurias iron and coal, Indochinas rubber, however, the army was at variance with the zaibatsu financial and industrial corporations on how to manage economic expansion, a conflict also affecting domestic politics. Also forming part of the basis for the growth of militarism was the freedom from civilian control enjoyed by the Japanese armed forces, in 1878, the Imperial Japanese Army established the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff office, modeled after the Prussian General Staff. This office was independent of, and equal to the Ministry of War of Japan in terms of authority, the Imperial Japanese Navy soon followed with the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff. These General Staff offices were responsible for the planning and execution of military operations, as the Chiefs of the General Staff were not cabinet ministers, they did not report to the Prime Minister of Japan, and were thus completely independent of any civilian oversight or control. The Army and the Navy also had decisive say on the formation of any civilian government, in reality, while this tactic was used only one time, the threat always loomed high when the military made any demands on the civilian leadership. Patriotic education also strengthened the sense of a hakko ichiu, or a mission to unify Asia under Japanese rule. A turning point came with the ratification of the London Naval Treaty of 1930, Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi and his Minseito party agreed to a treaty which would severely limit Japanese naval power. The Japanese system of party government finally met its demise with the May 15 Incident in 1932, Japan had been involved in the Asian continent continuously from the First Sino-Japanese War, Boxer Rebellion, Russo-Japanese War, World War I and the Siberian Intervention. During the term of Prime Minister Tanaka Giichi from 1927 to 1929, the Manchurian Incident of September 1931 did not fail, and it set the stage for the Japanese military takeover of all of Manchuria
24.
Battle of Okinawa
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The 82-day-long battle lasted from 1 April until 22 June 1945. The Tenth was unique in that it had its own air force. The battle has been referred to as the typhoon of steel in English, the nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of Japanese kamikaze attacks, and the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with an total of over 82,000 direct casualties on both sides,14,009 Allied deaths and 77,417 Japanese soldiers. Allied grave registration forces counted 110,071 dead bodies of Japanese soldiers,149,425 Okinawans were killed, committed suicide or went missing, a significant proportion of the estimated pre-war 300,000 local population. As part of the operations surrounding the battle, the Japanese battleship Yamato was sunk. After the battle, Okinawa provided an anchorage, troop staging areas. Expeditionary Troops under Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. with Tenth Army, TF56 was the largest force within TF50 and was built around the 10th Army. The army had two corps under its command, III Amphibious Corps, consisting of 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, the 2nd Marine Division was an afloat reserve, and Tenth Army also controlled the 27th Infantry Division, earmarked as a garrison, and 77th Infantry Divisions. In all, the Army had over 102,000 soldiers, at the start of Battle of Okinawa 10th Army had 182,821 men under its command. It was planned that General Buckner would report to Turner until the phase was completed. Although Allied land forces were composed of U. S. units. Although all the carriers were provided by Britain, the carrier group was a combined British Commonwealth fleet with British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian ships. Their mission was to neutralize Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, most of the air-to-air fighters and the small dive bombers and strike aircraft were U. S. Navy carrier-based airplanes. The Japanese land campaign was conducted by the 67, 000-strong regular 32nd Army and some 9,000 Imperial Japanese Navy troops at Oroku naval base, supported by 39,000 drafted local Ryukyuan people. The Japanese had used kamikaze tactics since the Battle of Leyte Gulf, between the American landing on 1 April and 25 May, seven major kamikaze attacks were attempted, involving more than 1,500 planes. The 32nd Army initially consisted of the 9th, 24th, and 62nd Divisions, the 9th Division was moved to Taiwan prior to the invasion, resulting in shuffling of Japanese defensive plans. Primary resistance was to be led in the south by Lt. General Mitsuru Ushijima, his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Isamu Chō and his chief of operations, Yahara advocated a defensive strategy, whilst Chō advocated an offensive one
25.
Koza riot
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The Koza riot was a violent and spontaneous protest against the US military presence in Okinawa, which occurred on the night of December 20,1970, into the morning of the following day. Roughly 5,000 Okinawans clashed with roughly 700 American MPs in an event which has been regarded as symbolic of Okinawan anger against 25 years of US military occupation. In the riot, approximately 60 Americans were injured,80 cars were burned, following Japans defeat in World War II, Japan came to be formally occupied by Allied forces and governed under martial law for roughly seven years. While the Occupation of Japan came to an end and most of Japan regained its independence in April 1952, the servicemen involved in that incident were acquitted at their court-martial. The riot lasted seven or eight hours, beginning in the morning hours of December 20,1970. It was not pre-meditated, planned or arranged, but is said to have erupted spontaneously from tensions, the Americans got out of their car and made sure the man was alright, he presently stood up and walked away. The four men were then about to get back into their car to leave the scene when they were confronted by a number of Okinawan taxi drivers who had witnessed the accident. A crowd began to form, some were shouting no more acquittals, Yankee go home, two American military police vehicles also arrived, sirens blaring. While the newly arrived MPs attempted to extricate their comrades from the situation, the crowd had the victim lie down where hed been hit, many accounts emphasize that the newly arrived MPs ignored the man who had been hit, focusing only on seeking to extricate their countrymen. Okinawan police were able to remove the American driver safely from the scene, warning shots were fired, attracting a larger crowd, which soon numbered around five thousand, the number of MPs on the scene was now around 700. The rioters pulled American servicemen from their cars and beat them, about 500 rioters then broke the fence of Kadena Air Base and razed the military employment building and the offices of Stars and Stripes newspaper. The MPs, meanwhile, began to tear gas. The riot finally died down and came to an end around 7 oclock in the morning, in the end, many were injured, including 60 Americans, a song on the eponymous debut album of the Okinawa-based electronic duo Ryukyu Underground is entitled Koza Riot. Mitchell, Jon, Koza Remembered, The Japan Times, December 27,2009, inoue, Masamichi S. Okinawa and the US Military, Identity Making in the Age of Globalization. New York, Columbia University Press,2007, the Koza riot of December 1970 and the Okinawan search for citizenship. In Glen D. Hook, Richard Siddle, Japan and Okinawa, Structure and Subjectivity
26.
Amami Islands
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The Amami Islands is an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is in turn part of the Ryukyu Islands. Administratively, the group belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan and the Japan Coast Guard agreed on February 15,2010, to use the name of Amami-guntō for the Amami Islands. Prior to that, Amami-shotō was also used, the name of Amami is probably cognate with Amamikyu, the goddess of creation in the Ryukyuan creation myth. The Amami Islands are limestone islands of origin and have a total area of approximately 1,240.28 square kilometres. The highest elevation is Yuwandake with a height of 694 metres on Amami Ōshima, the climate is a humid subtropical climate with very warm summers and mild winters. Precipitation is high throughout the year, but is highest in the months of May, June, the area is subject to frequent typhoons. Islanders started to produce earthenware from 6000 years ago, affected by the Jōmon culture in Kyushu, initially, the styles were similar to those of the main islands of Japan, but later, a style original to Amami, known as “Usuki Lower Style”, was developed. Among Japanese literature, mention of the islands first appeared in the 7th century, the Nihon Shoki contains an entry dated 657 referring to Amami-shima, and to the Amami-bito in 682. The Shoku Nihongi refers to Amami in 699 and Amami in 714, all of these are believed to be identical to the current Amami. The tenth kentō-shi mission traveled to Tang Dynasty China via Amami Ōshima, among locals, this prehistoric period is called the Amami period. Agriculture came to the islands around the 12th century, and the people shifted to farming from hunting, as on Okinawa Island, this resulted in the development of a nobility class called the aji, who resided in castles called gusuku. Famous gusuku included Beru Castle in Kasari, Amami, and Yononushi Castle in Wadomari, stronger aji battled each other to expand their territories. Local folklore states that some of Taira clan members, having lost the Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185, the historical accuracy of this is unknown. This gusuku period is called the Aji period. Eventually the Amami aji were forced to pay tribute to stronger nations to retain autonomy, Ryukyuan records state that Amami aji paid tribute to Eiso, the king of Chūzan in Sanzan period Okinawa. Okinoerabu and Yoron fell under Hokuzans control, however, since Okinawa itself was still rife with civil wars, it could not control the Northern Amami Islands. Aji from Tokuno and further north just paid tribute to Okinawan kingdoms, after 1429, Shō Hashi unified Okinawa Island, founding the Ryukyu Kingdom. During the 1430s and 1440s, Ryukyu expanded into the Amami Islands, by 1450, Ryukyuan forces had reached deep into the Tokara Islands and conquered all but Kikai Island, which was invaded in 1466
27.
Ryukyu Kingdom
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The Ryukyu Kingdom was an independent kingdom that ruled most of the Ryukyu Islands from the 15th to the 19th century. The kings of Ryukyu unified Okinawa Island and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, despite its small size, the kingdom played a central role in the maritime trade networks of medieval East and Southeast Asia. In the 14th century, small domains scattered on Okinawa Island were unified into three principalities, Hokuzan, Chūzan and Nanzan and this was known as the Three Kingdoms or Sanzan period. Hokuzan, which constituted much of the half of the island, was the largest in terms of land area and military strength. Nanzan constituted the southern portion of the island, Chūzan lay in the center of the island, and was economically the strongest. Its political capital at Shuri, Nanzan was adjacent to the port of Naha and Kume-mura. These sites, and Chūzan as a whole, would continue to form the center of the Ryukyu Kingdom until its abolition, many Chinese moved to Ryukyu to serve the government or to engage in business during this period. At the request of the Ryukyuan King, the Ming Chinese sent 36 Chinese families from Fujian to manage oceanic dealings in the kingdom in 1392 during the Hongwu emperors reign, many Ryukyuan officials were descended from these Chinese immigrants, being born in China or having Chinese grandfathers. They assisted the Ryukyuans in advancing their technology and diplomatic relations, according to statements by Qing imperial official Li Hongzhang in a meeting with Ulysses S. These three principalities, or tribal federations, led by major chieftains, battled, and Chūzan emerged victorious, the Chūzan leaders were officially recognized by Ming dynasty China as the rightful kings over those of Nanzan and Hokuzan, thus lending great legitimacy to their claims. The ruler of Chūzan passed his throne to King Hashi, Hashi conquered Hokuzan in 1416 and Nanzan in 1429, uniting the island of Okinawa for the first time, Hashi received the surname Shō 尚 from the Ming emperor in 1421, becoming known as Shō Hashi 尚巴志. Shō Hashi adopted the Chinese hierarchical court system, built Shuri Castle and the town as his capital, and constructed Naha harbor. When in 1469 King Shō Toku, who was a grandson of Shō Hashi, died without a male heir and this pretender, Shō En, began the Second Shō Dynasty. Ryukyus golden age occurred during the reign of Shō Shin, the king of that dynasty. For nearly two hundred years, the Ryukyu Kingdom would thrive as a key player in trade with Southeast and East Asia. In the late 16th century, however, the commercial prosperity fell into decline. The decline of the wokou threat among other factors led to the loss of Chinese preferential treatment. Around 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi asked the Ryukyu Kingdom to aid in his campaign to conquer Korea, if successful, Hideyoshi intended to then move against China
28.
Ryukyu independence movement
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The Ryukyu independence movement or Republic of the Ryukyus is a movement for the independence of Ryukyu Islands, commonly referred to as Okinawa after the largest island, from Japan. The movement emerged in 1945, after the end of the Pacific War, some Ryukyuan people felt, as the Allied Occupation began, that the Ryukyus should eventually become an independent state, instead of being returned to Japan. Since the 1950s, due to ideological and social reasons, the majority pushed for unification with the mainland, the islands were returned to Japan on May 15,1972 as the Okinawa Prefecture according to the 1971 Okinawa Reversion Agreement. This set the stage for renewed political movement for Ryukyuan independence, the movement places equal weight to the 1609 invasion by Satsuma Domain, and the Meiji government forced, by them considered colonial, annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom as Okinawa Prefecture. It is highly critical of the islands sacrifice during the Battle of Okinawa, the Ryukyuan people are ethnically, culturally and linguistically indigenous people who live on the Ryukyu Islands. Before the unification in the century, during the Sanzan period the Okinawa was divided into three polities Hokuzan, Chūzan and Nanzan. In 1429, Chūzans chieftain Shō Hashi unified them and founded the autonomous Ryukyu Kingdom, later unarmed, in addition to Korea, Thailand and other Southeast Asian polities, the kingdom maintained trade relations with Japan, and during this period emerged a unique political and cultural identity. This resulted with the kingdoms dual vassalage status until the mid-19th century, during the Meiji period, the Meiji government of the Empire of Japan began a process lated called as Ryukyu Shobun - to formally annex the kingdom into the modern Japan. Firstly established as Ryukyu Domain, in 1879 the kingdom-domain was abolished, established as Okinawa Prefecture, the treaty was rejected as the Chinese court at the last minute decided to not ratify the agreement. In Meiji period the government continuously and formally suppressed Ryukyuan people ethnic identity, culture, tradition and language, since the formation of prefecture, its relationship with the Japanese nation-state was contested and changed. There have been significant movements for Okinawan independence following its annexation, in the prior to. Many civilians dead due to mass suicide forced by the Japanese military, many scholars in post-war period, and especially recently, began to consider the annexation of Ryukyu Islands as a colonial forerunner of colonization which led to Japanese colonial empire. Some like Taira Katsuyasu consider the establishment of Okinawa Prefecture as colonialism outright. S. military presence, in 2007, he described them as democratic colonizers. Eiji Oguma noted that the practice of othering used in colonial domination produced the backward Okinawa. Some like Tomiyama Ichiro suggest that for the Ryukyuans being a member of modern Japan nation-state was nothing other than the start of being on the end of colonial domination. Gregory Smits noted that other works in Japanese come close to characterizing Ryukyu/Okinawa as Japans first colony. Traced the annexation back to 1609 and not 1879, with the creation of unified racial society of Yamato people it was created an idea that the Ryukyuan racial incorporation was natural and inevitable. Only recently the scholars like Jun Yonaha begun to see that idea of unification itself functions as a mean of legitimizing the Ryukyu Shobun
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Historic Sites of Okinawa
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This list is of the Historic Sites of Japan located within the Prefecture of Okinawa. Much of the heritage of the Ryūkyū Kingdom and Islands was destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa, as of 1 December 2014, thirty-nine sites have been designated as being of national significance. As of 1 May 2014, fifty-four sites have been designated as being of prefectural importance, as of 1 May 2014, a further two hundred and ninety-six sites have been designated as being of municipal importance
30.
Stone Age
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The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking, bone tools were used during this period as well but are rarely preserved in the archaeological record. The Stone Age is further subdivided by the types of tools in use. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the living primates, the genus Pan, represents a branch that continued on in the deep forest. The rift served as a conduit for movement into southern Africa and also north down the Nile into North Africa and through the continuation of the rift in the Levant to the vast grasslands of Asia. The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks, the oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery of these Lomekwian tools, the oldest known stone tools had been found at sites at Gona, Ethiopia, on the sediments of the paleo-Awash River. All the tools come from the Busidama Formation, which lies above a disconformity, or missing layer, the oldest sites containing tools are dated to 2. 6–2.55 mya. One of the most striking circumstances about these sites is that they are from the Late Pliocene, excavators at the locality point out that. the earliest stone tool makers were skilled flintknappers. The possible reasons behind this seeming abrupt transition from the absence of tools to the presence thereof include. The species who made the Pliocene tools remains unknown, fragments of Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus and Homo, possibly Homo habilis, have been found in sites near the age of the Gona tools. Innovation of the technique of smelting ore ended the Stone Age, the first most significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, each of which was smelted separately. The Chalcolithic by convention is the period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age, the transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 BCE and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. Note the Rudna Glava mine in Serbia, Ötzi the Iceman, a mummy from about 3300 BCE carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife. In regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age, the Middle East and southeastern Asian regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000 BCE. Europe, and the rest of Asia became post–Stone Age societies by about 4000 BCE, the proto-Inca cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000 BCE, when gold, copper and silver made their entrance
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Yaeyama District, Okinawa
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Yaeyama is a district located in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The district covers all of the Yaeyama Islands except Ishigaki and the disputed Senkaku Islands, as of 2003, the district has an estimated population of 5,579 and the density of 15.37 persons per km². The total area is 362.89 square kilometers, Taketomi Yonaguni Two airports, Hateruma Airport on Hateruma island in Taketomi and Yonaguni Airport in Yonaguni serve the district
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Paleolithic
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It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools, probably by Homo habilis initially,2.6 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BP. The Paleolithic era is followed by the Mesolithic, the date of the Paleolithic–Mesolithic boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years. During the Paleolithic period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, the Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers, however, due to their nature, surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as paleoliths. About 50,000 years ago, there was a increase in the diversity of artifacts. For the first time in Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record, the first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. Humankind gradually evolved from members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis. The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures, by c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe, by c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia, the term Paleolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek, παλαιός, palaios, old, and λίθος, lithos, stone, human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of anatomically modern humans as a distinct species. The Paleolithic Period coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time and this epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africas collision with Asia created the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean, climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before the end of the epoch, the global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas
33.
Jianzhen
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Jianzhen was a Chinese monk who helped to propagate Buddhism in Japan. In the eleven years from 743 to 754, Jianzhen attempted to visit Japan some six times, Ganjin finally came to Japan in the year 754 and founded Tōshōdai-ji in Nara. When he finally succeeded on his attempt he had lost his eyesight as a result of his hardship. Jianzhen was born in Jiangyin county in Guangling China, with the surname of Chunyu, at the age of fourteen, he became a disciple of Daming Temple. At twenty he travelled to Changan for study and returned six years later, besides his learning in the Tripiṭaka, Jianzhen is also said to have been expert in medicine. He opened the Buddhist church as a place of healing, creating the Beitian Court —a hospital within Daming Temple, in autumn 742, an emissary from Japan invited Jianzhen to lecture in Japan. Despite protests from his disciples, Jianzhen made preparations and in spring 743 was ready for the voyage across the East China Sea to Japan. The crossing failed and in the years, Jianzhen made three more attempts but was thwarted by unfavourable conditions or government intervention. In summer 748, Jianzhen made his attempt to reach Japan. Leaving from Yangzhou, he made it to the Zhoushan Archipelago off the coast of modern Zhejiang, but the ship was blown off course and ended up in the Yande commandery on Hainan Island. Jianzhen was then forced to make his way back to Yangzhou by land, Jianzhen travelled along the Gan River to Jiujiang, and then down the Yangtze River. The entire failed enterprise took him close to three years, by the time Jianzhen returned to Yangzhou, he was blind from an infection. In the autumn of 753, the blind Jianzhen decided to join a Japanese emissary ship returning to its home country, after an eventful sea journey of several months, the group finally landed at Kagoshima, Kyūshū, on December 20. They reached Nara in the spring of the year and were welcomed by the Emperor. At Nara, Jianzhen presided over Tōdai-ji, now among the oldest Buddhist establishments in Japan, the Chinese monks who travelled with him introduced Chinese religious sculpture to the Japanese. In 755, the first ordination platform in Japan was constructed at Tōdai-ji, on the place where including former Emperor Shōmu, in 759 he retired to a piece of land granted to him by the imperial court in the western part of Nara. There he founded a school and also set up a private temple, in the ten years until his death in Japan, Jianzhen not only propagated the Buddhist faith among the aristocracy, but also served as an important conductor of Chinese culture. Jianzhen died on the 6th day of the 5th month of 763, a dry-lacquer statue of him made shortly after his death can still be seen at Tōshōdai-ji
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East China Sea
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The East China Sea is a marginal sea east of China. The East China Sea is a part of the Pacific Ocean, to the east lies the Japanese islands of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands, to the south lies the South China Sea, and to the west by the Asian continent. The sea connects with the Sea of Japan through the Korea Strait, the sovereign states which border the sea include South Korea, Japan, the Republic of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The East China Sea is a part of the Pacific Ocean and it is bounded on the east by Kyūshū and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, on the south by the South China Sea, and on the west by the Asian continent. It connects with the Sea of Japan through the Korea Strait, it opens in the north to the Yellow Sea, states with borders on the sea include, South Korea, Japan, Republic of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Eastern China Sea as follows, the Northern limit of the South China Sea, thence from Santyo the Northeastern point of Formosa to the West point of Yonakuni Island and thence to Haderuma Sima. The Yangtze River is the largest river flowing into the East China Sea, tong Island There is a cluster of submerged reefs in the northern East China Sea. These include, Socotra Rock, also called Suyan Rock or Ieodo, hupijiao Rock Yajiao Rock The sea is called the East Sea in Chinese, being one of the Four Seas of Chinese literature. There are three other seas, one for each of the four cardinal directions, until World War II, the sea was referred to as 東支那海 in Japanese. In 2004, official documents of the Japanese Foreign Ministry and other departments switched to the name 東シナ海, common usage in Indonesia refers to the sea as Laut Cina Timur. Despite this, many Indonesian media outlets and publications continue to use the sea name. American whaleships cruised for whales in the sea between 1849 and 1892. There are disputes between the Peoples Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea over the extent of their exclusive economic zones. The dispute between the PRC and Japan concerns the different application of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China and Japan both claim 200 nautical miles EEZ rights, but the East China Sea width is only 360 nautical miles. China proposed the application of UNCLOS, considering the natural prolongation of its continental shelf, in 2012, China presented a submission under the UNCLOS concerning the outer limits of the continental shelf to the UN. Japan has objected to PRC development of gas resources in the East China Sea near the area where the two countries Exclusive Economic Zone claims overlap. The specific development in dispute is the PRCs drilling in the Chunxiao gas field, Japan therefore seeks a share in the natural gas resources. The gas fields in the Xihu Sag area in the East China Sea are estimated to hold reserves of 364 BCF of natural gas
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Gusuku
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Gusuku often refers to castles or fortresses in the Ryukyu Islands that feature stone walls. However, the origin and essence of gusuku remain controversial, in the archaeology of Okinawa Prefecture, the Gusuku period refers to an archaeological epoch of the Okinawa Islands that follows the shell-mound period and precedes the Sanzan period. Many gusuku and related cultural remains on Okinawa Island have been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites under the title Gusuku Sites, the Yarazamori Gusuku Inscription contains phrases, pile gusuku and pile up gusuku and. Apparently gusuku in these phrases to refer to stone walls, in the Omoro Sōshi, the term gusuku is written as くすく, or ぐすく in hiragana. Occasionally, the kanji 城 is assigned to it, in later ryūka and kumi odori, the reading shiro is also used for the same kanji. The referents of gusuku in the Omoro Sōshi are mostly castles and fortresses but are not limited to them, some are sacred places and places of worship. In some cases, gusuku refers to Shuri Castle, the Liuqiu-guan yiyu, a Chinese dictionary, maps Chinese 皇城 to the transcription 姑速姑. Similarly, the Yiyu yinshi assigns 窟宿孤 to 皇城, there is no consensus about the etymology of gusuku. Chamberlain analyzed the word as the combination of gu and shuku, kanazawa Shōzaburō also segmented gusuku into gu and suku but considered that the latter half was cognate with old mainland Japanese shiki, in which ki was a loan from some Old Korean language. Iha Fuyū proposed that suku was cognate with soko, hirata Tsugumasa considered that suku was cognate with mainland Japanese soko. Similarly, Higashionna Kanjun raised doubts over the analysis of gu since older records always used honorific u instead of gu, nakahara Zenchū identified gu as go. The most prominent feature of most gusuku is their wall, Gusuku walls are primarily made with Ryukyuan limestone and, sometimes, coral. There are three types of walls, pile, block, and tortoise. Examples of each are Nakijin Castle, Zakimi Castle, and parts of Shuri Castle, the shape of gusuku walls usually follows the contours of the land. They are usually thick, and sometimes have low parapets atop them, some gusuku walls, like those of Nakagusuku Castle, were designed to resist cannon fire. Gusuku have one or more baileys, the baileys of typical gusuku usually contained a residence, a well, an utaki, and storage buildings. Larger gusuku, like Nakijin Castle, could have more than five baileys, while smaller gusuku, Gusuku have one or more entrances, often guarded by a heavy gate or gatehouse. Gates were the strongpoints of gusuku, many gusuku, like Nakijin Castle, were adapted to have gun ports next to their gates
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Ming dynasty
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The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
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Shimazu clan
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The Shimazu clan were the daimyō of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan. The Shimazu were identified as one of the tozama or outsider daimyō families in contrast with the fudai or insider clans which were vassals or allies of the Tokugawa clan. The Shimazu were descendants of the Seiwa Genji branch of the Minamoto, the founder, Shimazu Tadahisa, was a son of Shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo with the sister of Hiki Yoshikazu. Tadahisas wife was a daughter of Koremune Hironobu, descendant of the Hata clan and he received the domain of Shioda in Shinano Province in 1186 and was then named shugo of Satsuma Province. He sent Honda Sadachika to take possession of the province in his name and he went to Satsuma in 1196, subdued Hyūga and Ōsumi provinces, and built a castle in the domain of Shimazu which name he also adopted. The 19th head, Yoshihiro, was the daimyō at the time of the Battle of Sekigahara, the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and his nephew and successor was Shimazu Tadatsune. He held significant power during the first two decades of the 17th century, and organized the Shimazu invasion of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in 1609, Tokugawa allowed this because he wished to appease the Shimazu and prevent potential uprisings after their loss at Sekigahara. The Shimazu clan is renowned for the loyalty of its retainers and officers, some retainer families, such as the Ijuin and Shirakawa, were determined to defeat any opposition to help expand the power of the Shimazu clan. The Shimazu are also famous for being the first to use firearms on the battlefield in Japan, Shimazu battle tactics are known to have been very successful in defeating larger enemy armies, particularly during their campaign to conquer Kyūshū in the 1580s. Their tactics included the luring of the opposition into an ambush on both sides by arquebus troops, creating panic and disorder, central forces would then be deployed to rout the enemy. In this way, the Shimazu were able to much larger clans such as the Itō, Ryūzōji. Hisamitsu, regent of Tadayoshi, was the daimyō of Satsuma han at the time of the Boshin War, Shimazu is a playable faction in Shogun 2. Member of Shimazu clan is also presented in Drifters Anime Takako Shimazu Bombardment of Kagoshima Appert, Georges, OCLC4429674 Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5, OCLC48943301 Kerr, George H. and Mitsugu Sakihara, okinawa, the History of an Island People. ISBN9780804820875, OCLC247416761 Papinot, Jacques Edmund Joseph, dictionnaire dhistoire et de géographie du japon
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Kagoshima Prefecture
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Kagoshima Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Kagoshima, Kagoshima Prefecture corresponds to the ancient Japanese provinces Ōsumi and Satsuma, including the northern part of the Ryukyu Islands. This region played a key role in the Meiji Restoration, and the city of Kagoshima was an important naval base during Japans 20th century wars and this became known only recently under the Koizumi administration. Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southwest tip of Kyushu on the Satsuma Peninsula and this prefecture also includes a chain of islands stretching further to the southwest of Kyushu for a few hundred kilometers. The most important group is the Amami Islands, surrounded by the East China Sea to the west, Okinawa Prefecture in the south, Kumamoto Prefecture to the north, and Miyazaki Prefecture to the east, it has 2,632 km of coastline. It has a bay called Kagoshima Bay, which is sandwiched by two peninsulas, Satsuma and Ōsumi and its position made it a gateway to Japan at various times in history. While Kyushu has about 13 million people, there are less than 2 million in this prefecture, the prefecture boasts a chain of active and dormant volcanoes, including the great Sakurajima, which towers out of the Kagoshima bay opposite Kagoshima city. A steady trickle of smoke and ash emerges from the caldera, on active days in Kagoshima city an umbrella is advisable to ward off the ash. Sakurajima is one of Japans most active volcanoes, major eruptions occurred in 1914, when the island mountain spilled enough material to become permanently connected to the mainland, and a lesser eruption in 1960. Volcanic materials in the soil make Sakurajima a source for record daikon radishes, many beaches around the Kagoshima Bay are littered with well-worn pumice stones. A crater lake in the tip of the prefecture, near the spa town of Ibusuki, is home to a rare species of giant eel. Most of the sector is focused in Kagoshima City and the surrounding area. The eastern part of the prefecture, the former Ōsumi Province, is mostly rural, the prefecture has strong agricultural roots, which are reflected in its most well-known exports, green tea, sweet potato, radish, Pongee rice, Satsuma ware and Berkshire pork. Kagoshima prefectures production of bonito flakes is second only to that of Shizuoka, in addition it produces Japans largest volume of unagi eels. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has several facilities within the prefecture, including the main launch facility on Tanegashima. The prefectures gross domestic product is approximately 4.834 trillion yen. League, Kagoshima United FC, a soccer team, was founded in 2014 and competes in the J3 League. High-speed craft route to Ibusuki, Tanegashima and Yakushima, ISBN 0-674-01753-6, ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5, OCLC58053128. Kagoshima travel guide from Wikivoyage Official Kagoshima Prefecture website National Archives of Japan
39.
Satsuma Domain
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Satsuma Domain, also known as Kagoshima Domain, was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It is associated with the provinces of Satsuma, Osumi and Hyūga in modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture, in the han system, Satsuma was a political and economic abstraction based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields. In other words, the domain was defined in terms of kokudaka and this was different from the feudalism of the West. The domain was ruled from Kagoshima Castle in Kagoshima city and its kokudaka was assessed at 770,000 koku, the second highest kokudaka after that of Kaga Domain. The Shimazu family controlled Satsuma province for four centuries prior to the beginning of the Edo period. Despite being chastised by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his 1587 Kyūshū Campaign, during the decisive battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the Shimazu fought on the losing side. Satsuma was one of the most powerful feudal domains in Tokugawa Japan and it was controlled throughout the Edo period by the tozama daimyō of the Shimazu clan. Since the mid-15th century, Satsuma fought with the Ryūkyū Kingdom for control of the Northern Ryūkyū Islands which lay southwest of Japan, in 1609, Shimazu Iehisa requested permission from the shogunate to invade Ryūkyū. After a three-month war which met resistance, Satsuma captured the Ryūkyūan capital of Shuri. In the ensuing treaty, Satsuma annexed the Amami and Tokara Islands, demanded tribute. For the remainder of the Edo period, Satsuma influenced their politics, though not the wealthiest han in terms of kokudaka, Satsuma remained among the wealthiest and most powerful domains throughout the Edo period. The Shimazu exercised their influence to exact from the shogunate a number of special exceptions and they also received special exceptions from the shogunate in regard to the policy of sankin kōtai, another policy meant to restrict the wealth and power of the daimyō. Under this policy, every feudal lord was mandated to travel to Edo at least once a year, the Shimazu were granted permission to make this journey only once every two years. These exceptions thus allowed Satsuma to gain more power and wealth relative to the majority of other domains. Though arguably opposed to the shogunate, Satsuma was perhaps one of the strictest domains in enforcing particular policies, in the 1830s, Satsuma used its illegal Okinawa trade to rebuild its finances under Zusho Hirosato. The Satsuma Daimyo of the 1850s, Shimazu Nariakira, was interested in Western thought and technology. At the time, contacts with Westerners increased dramatically, particularly for Satsuma, as Western ships frequently landed in the Ryukyus and sought not only trade, to increase his influence in the Shogunate, Nariakira engineered a marriage between Shogun Tokugawa Iesada and his adopted daughter, Atsu-hime. In 1854, the first year of Iesadas reign, Commodore Perry landed in Japan, however, the treaties signed between Japan and the western powers, particularly the Harris Treaty of 1858, put Japan at a serious disadvantage
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Tokugawa shogunate
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The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Tokugawa bakufu and the Edo bakufu, was the last feudal Japanese military government, which existed between 1600 and 1868. The head of government was the shogun, and each was a member of the Tokugawa clan, the Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle and the years of the shogunate became known as the Edo period. This time is called the Tokugawa period or pre-modern. Following the Sengoku period, the government had been largely re-established by Oda Nobunaga during the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu, society in the Tokugawa period, unlike the shogunates before it, was supposedly based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The daimyō were at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers, artisans, and traders ranking below. In some parts of the country, particularly smaller regions, daimyō and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyō might be trained as samurai, otherwise, the largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts which did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value, as a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners were worth less and less over time. This often led to confrontations between noble but impoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants, ranging from simple local disturbances to much bigger rebellions. None, however, proved compelling enough to challenge the established order until the arrival of foreign powers. The Tokugawa Shogunate came to an end in 1868 with the resignation of the 15th Tokugawa Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. The bakuhan taisei was the political system in the Edo period of Japan. Baku is an abbreviation of bakufu, meaning military government—that is, the han were the domains headed by daimyō. Vassals held inherited lands and provided service and homage to their lords. The bakuhan taisei split feudal power between the shogunate in Edo and provincial domains throughout Japan, provinces had a degree of sovereignty and were allowed an independent administration of the han in exchange for loyalty to the shogun, who was responsible for foreign relations and national security. The shogun and lords were all daimyō, feudal lords with their own bureaucracies, policies, the shogun also administered the most powerful han, the hereditary fief of the House of Tokugawa. Each level of government administered its own system of taxation, the emperor, nominally a religious leader, held no real power, this was invested in the shogun. The shogunate had the power to discard, annex, and transform domains, the sankin kōtai system of alternative residence required each daimyō to reside in alternate years between the han and the court in Edo
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