Mutsu Province

was an old province of Japan, made up of the present-day prefectures of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori, and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. It was also known as Ōshū (奥州), although that term usually referred to the combined provinces of Mutsu and Dewa.

Historical record

Mutsu, on northern Honshū, was one of the last provinces to be formed as land was taken from the indigenous Ainu and became the largest as it expanded northward. The ancient capital was in modern Miyagi Prefecture.

In the 3rd month of the 2nd year of the Wadō era (709), there was an uprising against governmental authority in Mutsu and in nearby Echigo Province. Troops were dispatched to subdue the revolt.

In the 5th year of the Wadō era (712), Mutsu was separated from Dewa Province. Empress Gemmei's Daijō-kan made cadastral changes in the provincial map of the Nara period, as in the following year when Mimasaka Province was split from Bizen Province; Hyūga Province was sundered from Osumi Province; and Tamba Province was severed from Tango Province. During the Sengoku period, various clans ruled different parts of the province. The Uesugi clan had a castle town at Wakamatsu in the south, the Nambu clan at Morioka in the north, and Date Masamune, a close ally of the Tokugawa, established Sendai, which is now the largest city in the Tōhoku region.

In the Meiji period, four provinces were created from Mutsu: Rikuchū, Rikuzen, Iwaki, and Iwashiro.

The area that is now Aomori Prefecture continued to be part of Mutsu until the Abolition of the han system and the nation-wide conversion to the prefectural structure of modern Japan.

Districts

Under Ritsuryō

• Iwase District (磐瀬郡)
• Aizu District (会津郡)
• Yama District (耶麻郡)
• Asaka District (安積郡)
• Adachi District (安達郡)
• Shinobu District (信夫郡)
• Katta District (刈田郡)
• Shibata District (柴田郡)
• Natori District (名取郡)
• Kikuta District (菊田郡) (now within Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture)
• Iwaki District (磐城郡)
• Shineha District (標葉郡)
• Namegata District (行方郡)
• Uda District (宇多郡)
• Esashi District (江刺郡)
• Igu District (伊具郡)
• Watari District (亘理郡)
• Miyagi District (宮城郡)
• Kurokawa District (黒川郡)
• Kami District (賀美郡)
• Shikama District (色麻郡)
• Tamatsukuri District (玉造郡)
• Shida District (志太郡)
• Kurihara District (栗原郡)
• Iwai District (磐井郡) (split into Higashiiwai and Nishiiwai districts in Iwate Prefecture)
• Isawa District (膽沢郡)
• Nagaoka District (長岡郡) (distinct from the one in Kōchi Prefecture)
• Niita District (新田郡) (distinct from the one in Gunma Prefecture)
• Oda District (小田郡)]] (now in the city of Tome, Miyagi Prefecture)
• Tōda District (遠田郡)
• Kesen District (気仙郡)
• Oshika District (牡鹿郡)
• Tome District (登米郡)
• Monou District (桃生郡)
• Ōnuma District (大沼郡)

Districts during the Meiji Era

• Tsugaru District (津軽郡)
• Kita District (北郡)
• Sannohe District (三戸郡)
• Ninohe District (二戸郡)

References

• Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652], Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon, tr. par M. Isaac Titsingh avec l'aide de plusieurs interprètes attachés au comptoir hollandais de Nangasaki; ouvrage re., complété et cor. sur l'original japonais-chinois, accompagné de notes et précédé d'un Aperçu d'histoire mythologique du Japon, par M. J. Klaproth. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. ...Click link for digitized, full-text copy of this book (in French)
• Mutsu Province. SamuraiWiki. Retrieved on 2008-01-16..