The was a powerful feudal domain in
Kagawas an old province in the area that is today the southern part of Ishikawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called .Ruled by the Maeda clan, the capital of Kaga was Kanazawa. Kaga bordered on Echizen, Etchū, Hida, and Noto Provinces...
,
Notowas an old province in the area that is today the northern part of Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan, including the Noto Peninsula which is surrounded by the Sea of Japan. It was sometimes called . Noto bordered on Etchū and Kaga provinces....
and
Etchūwas an old province in central Honshū, on the Sea of Japan side. It was sometimes called , with Echizen and Echigo Provinces. It bordered Echigo, Shinano, Hida, Kaga, and Noto provinces...
ProvincesBefore the modern prefecture system was established, the land of Japan was divided into tens of kuni , usually known in English as provinces. Each province was divided into gun ....
of
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
(present-day
Ishikawa Prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is Kanazawa.- History :Ishikawa was formed from the merger of Kaga Province and the smaller Noto Province.- Geography :Ishikawa is on the Sea of Japan coast...
and
Toyama Prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located in the Hokuriku region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Toyama.Toyama is the leading industrial prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, and has the industrial advantage of cheap electricity due to abundant water resources....
) during the
Edo periodThe , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
. The domain was founded by
Maeda Toshiiewas one of the leading generals of Oda Nobunaga following the Sengoku period of the 16th century extending to the Azuchi-Momoyama period. His father was Maeda Toshimasa. He was the fourth of seven brothers. His childhood name was "Inuchiyo" . His preferred weapon was a yari and he was known as...
and headed by the
Maeda clanThe was a branch of the Sugawara clan who descended from Sugawara no Kiyotomo and Sugawara no Michizane in the eighth and ninth centuries. It was one of the most powerful samurai families in Japan and they were second only to the Tokugawa clan in rice production and fief size...
. Its income rating, over 1,000,000
kokuThe is a Japanese unit of volume, equal to ten cubic shaku. In this definition, 3.5937 koku equal one cubic metre, i.e. 1 koku is approximately 278.3 litres. The koku was originally defined as a quantity of rice, historically defined as enough rice to feed one person for one year...
, was the highest in the nation after the
Tokugawa shogunateThe Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
itself. The domain was also known as .
List of Heads
- Toshiie
was one of the leading generals of Oda Nobunaga following the Sengoku period of the 16th century extending to the Azuchi-Momoyama period. His father was Maeda Toshimasa. He was the fourth of seven brothers. His childhood name was "Inuchiyo" . His preferred weapon was a yari and he was known as...
(founding father)
- Toshinaga
' was a Japanese daimyo who was the second head of the Kaga Domain. He was the eldest son of Maeda Toshiie and married one of Oda Nobunaga's daughters, Ei-hime....
- Toshitsune
was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, who ruled the Kaga Domain. Toshitsune was a brother of Maeda Toshinaga and a son of Toshiie. Adopted as his heir, he became the wealthiest daimyo outside the Tokugawa. He controlled Etchū, Kaga, and Noto provinces....
- Mitsutaka
was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, who ruled the Kaga Domain.By way of his mother, he was shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu's nephew. As Iemitsu was heirless for some time, Mitsutaka was considered as a potential heir; had this happened, he would have become the fourth Tokugawa shogun....
- Tsunanori
was a Japanese daimyo of the early Edo period who ruled the Kaga Domain....
- Yoshinori
was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, who ruled the Kaga Domain. Engaged in tax reforms designed to improve the Kaga domain's financial situation....
- Munetoki
' was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, who ruled the Kaga Domain. First known as Inuchiyomaru, he inherited family headship in 1745, following the death of his father Yoshinori. However, Munetoki himself did not live long, and died in 1747. The headship of the Kaga domain passed to his younger...
- Shigehiro
' was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period who ruled the Kaga domain....
- Shigenobu
' was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, who ruled the Kaga domain....
- Shigemichi
' was a Japanese daimyo of the Edo period, who ruled the Kaga domain.Shigemichi was the 7th son of Maeda Yoshinori, the 5th lord of Kaga. After his half-brother Shigenobu's death, Shigemichi was chosen as heir, and was being prepared to send to Edo to receive permission from the shogunate to...
- Harunaga
' was a Japanese daimyo of the mid-Edo period, who ruled the Kaga domain.He was the restorer of Kenroku-en and the founder of the Kaga domain's school, Meirin-dō....
- Narinaga
' was a Japanese daimyo of the late Edo period who ruled the Kaga domain. He was the second son of the 9th Kaga lord, Shigemichi...
- Nariyasu
' was a Japanese daimyo of the late Edo period who ruled the Kaga Domain.-Biography:Nariyasu was born in Kanazawa in 1811, the 2nd son of the Kaga lord, Maeda Narinaga. His childhood name was Katsuchiyo...
- Yoshiyasu
' was a Japanese daimyo who was the last ruler of the Kaga Domain. He was the brother and adopted heir of Maeda Nariyasu ....
Further reading
- Brown, Philip C. (1993). Central authority and local autonomy in the formation of early modern Japan: the case of Kaga domain. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
- Chūda Toshio 忠田敏男 (1993). Sankin kōtai dōchūki: Kaga-han shiryō o yomu 参勤交代道中記: 加賀藩史料を読む. Tokyo: Heibonsha 平凡社.
- Flershem, Robert G., and Yoshiko N. Flershem (1980). Kaga, a domain which changed slowly. Hamburg: Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens.
- McClain, James L. (1982). Kanazawa : a seventeenth-century Japanese castle town. New Haven: Yale University Press.