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The is a unit of volume in Japan, equal to ten cubic shaku
Shaku

The shaku is an archaic Japanese unit of length, approximately equal to the foot . As with other measurements, it was originally derived from nature: the average length between Node on bamboo....
. In this definition, 3.5937 koku equal one cubic metre
Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
, i.e. 1 koku is approximately 278.3 litre
Litre

The litre or liter is a unit of volume. There are two official symbols: the Latin letter L in lower and upper case . The lower case L is often written as a cursive l to avoid confusion with the number 1 in antiqua fonts....
s. The koku was originally defined as a quantity of rice
Rice

Rice is a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, and East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, making it the second-most consumed cereal grain, after maize....
, historically defined as enough rice to feed one person
Person

The term person in common usage means an individual human being. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term also has specialised context-specific meanings....
 for one year (one masu
Masu (Japanese)

A was originally a square wooden box used to measure rice in Japan during the feudal period. Masu existed in many sizes, typically covering the range from one Japanese units of measurement to five Go ....
 is enough rice to feed a person for one day). A koku of rice weighs about 150 kilograms (23.6 stone or 330 pounds).

In 1891, a smaller koku was defined such that one koku equalled exactly 240100/1331 litres, which is approximately 180.39 litres, or about 5 bushel
Bushel

A bushel is a unit of dry measure, usually subdivided into eight local gallons in the systems of Imperial units and U.S. customary units. It is used for volumes of dry measure commodity, not liquids, most often in agriculture....
s (40 Imperial or 48 US gallon
Gallon

A gallon is a measure of volume of approximately four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use....
s).

During the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
 of Japanese history
History of Japan

The written history of Japan begins with brief references of Twenty-Four Histories, a collection of Chinese historical texts, in the 1st century AD....
, each han (fiefdom) had an assessment of its wealth, and the koku was the unit of measurement
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
.






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The is a unit of volume in Japan, equal to ten cubic shaku
Shaku

The shaku is an archaic Japanese unit of length, approximately equal to the foot . As with other measurements, it was originally derived from nature: the average length between Node on bamboo....
. In this definition, 3.5937 koku equal one cubic metre
Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
, i.e. 1 koku is approximately 278.3 litre
Litre

The litre or liter is a unit of volume. There are two official symbols: the Latin letter L in lower and upper case . The lower case L is often written as a cursive l to avoid confusion with the number 1 in antiqua fonts....
s. The koku was originally defined as a quantity of rice
Rice

Rice is a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, and East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, making it the second-most consumed cereal grain, after maize....
, historically defined as enough rice to feed one person
Person

The term person in common usage means an individual human being. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term also has specialised context-specific meanings....
 for one year (one masu
Masu (Japanese)

A was originally a square wooden box used to measure rice in Japan during the feudal period. Masu existed in many sizes, typically covering the range from one Japanese units of measurement to five Go ....
 is enough rice to feed a person for one day). A koku of rice weighs about 150 kilograms (23.6 stone or 330 pounds).

In 1891, a smaller koku was defined such that one koku equalled exactly 240100/1331 litres, which is approximately 180.39 litres, or about 5 bushel
Bushel

A bushel is a unit of dry measure, usually subdivided into eight local gallons in the systems of Imperial units and U.S. customary units. It is used for volumes of dry measure commodity, not liquids, most often in agriculture....
s (40 Imperial or 48 US gallon
Gallon

A gallon is a measure of volume of approximately four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use....
s).

During the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
 of Japanese history
History of Japan

The written history of Japan begins with brief references of Twenty-Four Histories, a collection of Chinese historical texts, in the 1st century AD....
, each han (fiefdom) had an assessment of its wealth, and the koku was the unit of measurement
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
. The smallest han was 10,000 koku and Kaga han, the largest (other than the Shogun
Shogun

is a military rank and historical title for Hereditary Commanders in Chief of the Armed Forces of Japan. The Japanese word for "general", it is made up of two kanji characters: sho, meaning "commander", "general", or "admiral", and gun meaning military troops or warriors....
), was called the "million-koku domain." (Its holdings totaled around 1,025,000 koku) Many samurai
Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial society Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character ? was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau....
, including hatamoto
Hatamoto

A was a samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in History of Japan had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as gokenin. However, in the Edo period, hatamoto were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa house, and the gokenin were the lower va...
, received stipends in koku, while a few received salaries instead. In the Tohoku
Tohoku region

The is a geographical area of Japan. Tohoku is Japanese language for "northeast," and the Tohoku region occupies the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan....
 and Hokkaido
Hokkaido

, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island and the largest, northernmost of its 47 prefectures of Japan....
 domains, where rice could not be grown, the economy was still measured in koku but was not adjusted from year to year. Thus some han had larger economies than their koku indicated, which allowed them to fund development projects.

Koku was also used to measure how much a ship could carry when all its loads were rice. Smaller ships carried 50 koku (7.5 tons) while the biggest ships carried over 1,000 koku (150 tons). The biggest ships were actually larger than military vessels owned by the Shogunate.

In the Meiji period
Meiji period

The , or Meiji era, denotes the 45-year reign of the Meiji Emperor, running, in the Gregorian calendar, from 23 October 1868 to 30 July 1912. During this time, Japan started its modernization and rose to world power status....
 (1868–1912), Japanese units such as the koku were abolished and the metric system
Metric system

The metric system is an international decimalised systems of measurement, founded by France in 1791, that is the common system of Unit of measurement used by most of the world....
 was installed.

The Hyakumangoku Matsuri
Hyakumangoku Matsuri

The Hyakumangoku Matsuri is the main annual festival taking place in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan. The festival commemorates the entry of Lord Maeda Toshiie into Kanazawa Castle in 1583....
 (Million-Koku Festival) in Kanazawa
Kanazawa, Ishikawa

is the capital cities of Japan of Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan....
, Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of 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....
 celebrates the arrival of Lord Maeda Toshiie into the city in 1583, although the Maeda's income was not actually raised to over a million koku until after the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600.

The koku unit is still commonly used in the lumber industry in Japan.

See also

  • Kokudaka
    Kokudaka

    refers to a system for determining land value for tribute purposes in Edo period Japan and expressing this value in koku of rice. This tribute was no longer a percentage of the actual quantity of rice harvested, but was assessed based on the quality and size of the land....