Japanese historical terms

right|thumb|The mounted archer represented the quintessential samurai. The were members of the professional warrior class in pre-industrial Japan, who served as retainers to the lords. These men came from warrior families and trained from a young age in military arts through private instruction. Swordsmanship, archery, and horsemanship were the primary martial skills; and often in Japanese history, only samurai had the right to even possess these weapons. These weapons required years of training to master, and this commitment made the samurai superior to conscripts and militia, the latter who

, officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamakura period and Sengoku period when the shoguns themselves were figureheads, with real power in the hands of the of the Hōjō clan and of the Hosokawa clan. In addition, Taira no Kiyomori and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were leaders of the warrior class who did not hold the position of shogun, the highest office of the warrior class, yet gained the positions of and , t

thumb|upright=1.5|A map of the territories of the Sengoku daimyo around the first year of the Genki era (1570 AD)

Sakoku (; ; ) was the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and almost all foreign nationals were banned from entering Japan, while common Japanese people were kept from leaving the country. The policy was enacted by the shogunate government (bakufu) under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633 to 1639.

thumb|The Chinese characters (kanji) for "Rangaku". The first character "ran" is an abbreviation of the [[ateji for . The second character "gaku" means "study" and "learning".]] Rangaku (Kyūjitai: , ), and by extension , is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners from 1641 to 1853 because of the Tokugawa shogunate's policy of national isolation (sa'koku). thumb|A meeting of Japan, China, and the West, Shiba Kōkan, l

The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One gō is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before cooking), used to this day for the plastic measuring cup that is supplied with commercial Japanese rice cookers.

thumb|right|250px|Ashigaru wearing armor and jingasa firing tanegashima (Japanese matchlocks)

Japanese national slogan

thumb|Dogū, Ebisuda site in Tajiri, Miyagi|Tajiri, [[Miyagi Prefecture, 1000–400 BC.]]

thumb|350px| "En masse Attendance of Daimyo at Edo Castle on a Festive Day" from the Tokugawa Seiseiroku, [[National Museum of Japanese History]] Sankin-kōtai (, now commonly written as ) was a policy of the Tokugawa shogunate during most of the Edo period, created to control the daimyo, the feudal lords of Japan, politically, and to keep them from attempting to overthrow the regime. It required most daimyo to alternate between living in their domain and in the shogunate's capital, Edo, every year. This made the daimyo subject to constant surveillance from the shogunate. This also forced the d

thumb|right|300px|The House of Peers (Japan)|House of Peers in session with [[Emperor Meiji giving a speech (Ukiyo-e woodblock print by Yōshū Chikanobu, 1890)]]

The was a senior government post held by members of the Hōjō clan, officially a regent of the shogunate. From 1199 to 1333, during the Kamakura period, the shikken served as the head of the bakufu (shogun's government). This era was referred to as .

government position in pre-modern Japanese imperial court

The was a Japanese aristocratic class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The kuge were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th century until the rise of the Kamakura shogunate in the 12th century, at which point it was eclipsed by the bushi. The kuge still provided a weak court around the Emperor until the Meiji Restoration, when they merged with the daimyō, regaining some of their status in the process, and formed the kazoku (peerage), which lasted until the Japanese peerage system was abolished with the 1947 constitut

thumb|right|300px|Sculpture of a retired chōnin as a Upāsaka and Upāsikā|lay Buddhist. It was common for chōnin to take up Buddhism after retirement.thumb|The house of the merchant (Fukagawa Edo Museum) was a social class that emerged in Japan during the early years of the Tokugawa period. The word chōnin comes from the character chō (町) meaning city ward and the character nin (人) meaning person. In the social hierarchy, it was considered subordinate to the samurai warrior class.

thumb|right|The leading genrō Ito Hirobumi and Yamagata Aritomo in 1896 thumb|right|The genrō Saionji Kinmochi (right) at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 was an unofficial designation given to a generation of elder Japanese statesmen and military officers, all born between the 1830s and 1850s, who served as informal extraconstitutional advisors to the emperor during the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa eras of Japanese history.

government position in pre-modern Japanese imperial court

thumb|right|Map of Nara period|Nara-period shōen at Nukuta-dera in present-day Yamatokōriyama, [[Nara Prefecture. 8th century, in the collection of the National Museum of Japanese History]] A was a field or manor in Japan. The Japanese term comes from the Tang dynasty Chinese term "莊園" (Mandarin: zhuāngyuán, Cantonese: zong1 jyun4).

in Edo-period Japan, a daimyō considered an outsider by the shōgun, from those families who submitted to the Tokugawa shōgunate after the Battle of Sekigahara, including both daimyō who fought with the Tokugawa and those who fought against them

The , usually translated as Elder, was one of the highest-ranking government posts under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. The term refers either to individual Elders, or to the Council of Elders as a whole; under the first two shōguns, there were only two Rōjū. The number was then increased to five, and later reduced to four. The Rōjū were usually appointed from the ranks of the fudai daimyōs with domains of between 25,000 and 50,000 koku.

thumb|Kitsune|Foxes sacred to Shinto kami Inari, a [[torii, a Buddhist stone pagoda, and Buddhist figures together at Jōgyō-ji, Kamakura]] Shinbutsu-shūgō (, "syncretism of kami and buddhas"), a.k.a. the Shinbutsu-konkō (, "jumbling up" or "contamination of kami and buddhas"), is the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism that was Japan's main organized religion up until the Meiji period. Beginning in 1868, the new Meiji government approved a series of laws that separated Japanese native kami worship, on one side, from Buddhism which had assimilated it, on the other.

in Edo-period Japan, a class of daimyōs who were hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa, many of whom were families serving the Tokugawa clan since before its rise to shogunhood; primarily occupied the ranks of the Tokugawa administration

Japanese political slogan, popularized during the Second Sino-Japanese war, describing Japanese imperial rule as divinely ordained to expand until it united the entire world

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thumb|Woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the series Six Select Heroes depicting [[Kojima Yatarō wearing a sashimono]]

thumb|The nationalistic essence of kokutai is thought of as the uniqueness of the Japanese polity as issuing from a leader of divine origin. is a concept in the Japanese language translatable as "system of government", "sovereignty", "national identity, essence and character", "national polity; body politic; national entity; basis for the Emperor's sovereignty; Japanese constitution" or nation.

1858-60 removal of internal opposition in Tokugawa Japan

or, more rarely, kanryō, was a high political post in feudal Japan; it is usually translated as shōguns deputy. After 1349, there were actually two Kanrei, the Kyoto Kanrei and the Kantō Kanrei. But originally from 1219 until 1333, the post was synonymous with the Rokuhara Tandai, and was based in Kyoto. The Hōjō clan monopolized this post, and there were during this period two Deputies – a southern chief, and a northern chief. From 1336 to 1367, the Deputy was called . The first to hold this title was Kō no Moronao.

right|thumb|250px|Emergency food distribution by tonarigumi housewives The was the smallest unit of the national mobilization program established by the Japanese government in World War II. It consisted of units consisting of 10-15 households organized for fire fighting, civil defense and internal security.

group of Japanese samurai

were Japanese hereditary noble titles. Their use traces back to ancient times when they began to be used as titles signifying a family's political and social caste.

Japanese national slogan

The Japanese term , from Portuguese cristão (cf. Kristang), meaning "Christian", referred to Catholic Christians in Japanese and is used in Japanese texts as a historiographic term for Catholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries.

xenophobic protectionist policy in Tokugawa Japan

thumb|right|alt=Tokugawa Yoshimune|Tokugawa Yoshimune The or was a group of government-employed undercover agents (onmitsu), established by the 8th Tokugawa shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684–1751). They were under the direct command of the shōgun and were in charge of assassination of high-value targets, clandestine operation, counterintelligence, executive protection, providing security at Edo Castle areas, and undercover intelligence operations. In actuality, their work consisted more often of reporting any news about the city of Edo to the shōgun or remaining incognito to inspect and report

East Asian name of India

refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of koku of rice.

The were lower-ranking provincial samurai that emerged in 15th-century Japan Muromachi period. The definition was rather broad and the term jizamurai included landholding military aristocracy as well as independent peasant farmers. They alternated between warfare and using their relatively small plots of land for intensive and diversified forms of agriculture. They came from the powerful , who owned farmland and held leadership positions in their villages, and became vassals of and later .

was the title (post) held by the head of the mainline Hōjō clan, who also monopolized the position of shikken (regents to the shogunate) of the Kamakura shogunate in Japan during the period of Regent Rule (1199–1333). It’s important not to confuse a regent of the shogunate with a regent of the Emperor (the latter are called Sesshō and Kampaku). Shikkens were the first regents to the shogunate.

Conference convened in the presence of the Japanese emperor

The Kamakura-fu at the time of its maximum expansion|250 px|thumb The or was a regional government installed in Kamakura, in today's Kanagawa Prefecture, by the Ashikaga shogunate which lasted from 1349 to 1455. It was headed by a dynasty of Ashikaga rulers called Kamakura Kubō (or Kantō Kubō). They were assisted by deputies called Kantō Kanrei traditionally chosen among the members of the Uesugi clan.

is the section of a Japanese Imperial Palace called the where the Imperial Family and court ladies lived.

Japanese Buddhist theory incorporating kami into the Buddhist pantheon

thumb|Mononobe no Arakabi, a government minister and gōzoku of the Yamato period , in Japanese, refers to powerful regional families. In historical context, it can refer to powerful non-royal families regardless of their area of influence, in contrast to the Imperial Family. The most powerful gōzoku families of the Yamato period included the Soga clan, Mononobe clan and Katsuragi clan.

was the chief governing body of an important family or monastic complex in ancient Japan. This name was borrowed for the administrative department of the Shogunate in feudal and medieval times.

thumb|A photograph of a typical Meiji-era anma thumb|A blind practitioner and a woman. As well as musicians, the anma practitioners were the popular occupation of the blind till the establishment of deaf and blind institutes opened in the 1870s, which granted them wider fields of employment. Anma () is a practice of traditional Japanese massage; the word also refers to practitioners of that art. Modern shiatsu is largely derived from anma.

Japanese naval stategy in WWII

is the collective term for the most important officials attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras. The term generally referred to the and court officials and denoted a court rank between First Rank and Third Rank under the Ritsuryō system, as opposed to the lower court nobility, thus being the collective term for the upper court nobility. However, later on some holders of the Fourth Rank were also included.

was the name of an ancient title of nobility in the kabane system of Yamato period Japan from the 4th through 6th century AD, before the introduction of the Ritsuryō system. The word is a combination of the kanji for with , a political unit smaller than a province, and the agatanushi ranked below the title of . It is thought that the agatanushi were originally chieftains of small Kofun period tribal states which had been annexed by the Yamato state.

The midaidokoro (御台所) was the official wife of the shōgun. During the Edo period, she resided in the Ōoku of Edo Castle and sometimes wielded considerable political power behind the scenes.

is a term which originally indicated the head of an institution serving temporarily as the head of another one, but which came to mean also the full-time head of some institution. The Kamakura period samurai Wada Yoshimori, for example, was the first bettō of the shogunate's Samurai-dokoro.

ruler of the Kantō region during the early Muromachi period in Japan

is a Japanese term for the walls of a Japanese castle, and the regions bounded by the arrangement of those walls. The term may also be written as 郭, and the term is also used for castles built after the Edo period. The kuruwa serves as a defensive territory, provides space for additional castle facilities, and contains the living quarters for common soldiers, making it an important fixture of all Japanese castles. Most castles built during the Middle Ages contain many kuruwa of small area, while those built during or after the early modern period often contain a lesser number of kuruwa of larg

was a hereditary noble title in Japan, used mainly between the Asuka and Heian periods. At first, it was the second highest, below Mahito, which was given to members of the Imperial family, but after the Heian period it became the highest of the eight noble titles: Ason, Mahito, Sukune, Imiki, Michinoshi, Omi, Muraji, and Inagi.

thumb|The honjin at Inaba Kaidō's [[Ōhara-shuku.]] is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (shukuba) during the later part of the Edo period.

Sukune (宿禰) is one of the hereditary noble titles of ancient Japan. In the 3rd to 5th centuries, it was used as a title to represent military and administrative officers of the Yamato court.

thumb|A hatago in Japan which today functions as a museum were Edo period lodgings for travelers at shukuba (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes and the subroutes. In addition to a place to rest, hatago also offered meals and other foods to the travelers. They were also called .

thumb|A tonya in Japan which today functions as a museum

The system was an institution developed by the Japanese Imperial court in Nara during the Nara and early Heian periods for the conscription and regulation of local paramilitary or militia forces. The kondei system was divided into regional administrative divisions overseen by .

Taifu (大夫) was a noble title in Japan, denoting a court rank between First Rank and Fifth Rank under the Ritsuryō system. It was also commonly used to refer to a holder of Fifth Rank, but also for holders of Fourth and Fifth Rank, to differentiate from holders of First, Second and Third Rank, collectively known as kugyō.