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Hizen Province

Former province of Japan

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
3 min read
Source updated May 28, 2025
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Hizen Province (肥前国, Hizen no Kuni; Japanese pronunciation: [çiꜜ.(d)zeɴ, -(d)zen no kɯ.ɲi]) was an old province of Japan in the area of the Saga and Nagasaki prefectures. It was sometimes called Hishū (肥州), with Higo Province. Hizen bordered on the provinces of Chikuzen and Chikugo. The province was included in Saikaidō. It did not include the island provinces (now municipalities) of Tsushima and Iki that are now part of modern Nagasaki Prefecture.

01History

The name "Hizen" dates from the Nara period Ritsuryō Kokugunri system reforms, when the province was divided from Higo Province. The name appears in the early chronicle Shoku Nihongi from 696 AD. The ancient provincial capital of Hizen was located near Yamato City.

During the late Muromachi period, the province was the site of much early contact between Japan and Portuguese and Spanish merchants and missionaries. Hirado, and later Nagasaki became major foreign trade centers, and a large percentage of the population converted to Roman Catholicism. Toyotomi Hideyoshi directed the invasion of Korea from the city of Nagoya, in Hizen, and after the suppression of foreign contacts and prohibition against the Kirishitan religion, the Shimabara Rebellion also took place in Hizen province.

List of han

During the Edo period, Hizen Province was divided among several daimyōs, but dominated by the Nabeshima clan, whose domain was centered at the castle town of Saga. At the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, Hizen was divided between the following han:

Domain Daimyō Revenue (koku) Type
Saga Domain Nabeshima 357,000 tozama
Ogi Domain Nabeshima 73,000 tozama
Shimabara Domain Matsudaira 70,000 fudai
Hirado Domain Matsuura 61,000 tozama
Karatsu Domain Ogasawara 60,000 fudai
Hasunoike Domain Nabeshima 52,000 tozama
Ōmura Domain Ōmura 28,000 tozama
Kashima Domain Nabeshima 20,000 tozama
Fukue Domain Gotō 12,000 tozama

During this period, the port of Nagasaki remained a tenryō territory, administered for the Tokugawa government by the Nagasaki bugyō, and contained the Dutch East India Company trading post of Dejima. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 came the abolition of the han system in 1871, whereby all daimyo were obliged to surrender their domains to the new Meiji government, which then divided the nation into numerous prefectures, which were consolidated into 47 prefectures and 3 urban areas by 1888. The former Hizen province was divided into modern Saga Prefecture and a portion of Nagasaki Prefecture. At the same time, the province continued to exist for some purposes. For example, Hizen is explicitly recognized in treaties in 1894 (a) between Japan and the United States and (b) between Japan and the United Kingdom.

Hizen Kokuchō Site in Saga
Hizen Kokuchō Site in Saga

02Historical districts

Hizen Kokubun-ji Site in Saga
Hizen Kokubun-ji Site in Saga

03Other websites

Media related to Hizen Province at Wikimedia Commons

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Hizen Province”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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