Hitachi Province

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Map of the Japanese provinces, Hitachi highlighted in red

Hitachi ( Japanese 常 陸 国 , Hitachi no kuni ) or Jōshū ( 常州 ) was one of the historical provinces of Japan . It bordered the provinces of Iwashiro , Iwaki , Shimousa and Shimotsuke . Today the area is Ibaraki Prefecture .

The old provincial capital ( kokufu ) and the official provincial temple were located near today's Ishioka and were excavated. The main shrine ( ichi-no-miya ) was further east near Kashima .

In the 8th century, it was the most populous province in Japan with a population of 217,000.

In the Sengoku period , the province was divided among several daimyo . The most important fiefdom was the Mito of the same name , which was ruled by the Mito branch of the Tokugawa shogunate family.

Individual evidence

  1. Cornelius J. Kiley: Provincial administration and land tenure in Heian Japan . In: Donald H. Shively, William H. McCullough (Eds.): The Cambridge History of Japan . Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-22353-9 , pp. 255 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Coordinates: 36 ° 23 '  N , 140 ° 24'  E