Higo Province

Higo Province (肥後国, Higo no kuni) was an old province of Japan in the area that is today Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū.[1] It was sometimes called Hishū (肥州), with Hizen Province. Higo bordered on Chikugo, Bungo, Hyūga, Ōsumi, and Satsuma Provinces.

This article is about the Japanese province. For the album by The Roots, see How I Got Over (album).
Map of Japanese provinces (1868) with Higo Province highlighted

History

The castle town of Higo was usually at Kumamoto City. During the Muromachi period, Higo was held by the Kikuchi clan, but they were dispossessed during the Sengoku period, and the province was occupied by neighboring lords, including the Shimazu clan of Satsuma, until Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Kyūshū and gave Higo to his retainers, first Sassa Narimasa and later Katō Kiyomasa. The Kato were soon stripped of their lands, and the region was given to the Hosokawa clan.

During the Sengoku Period, Higo was a major center for Christianity in Japan, and it is also the location where Miyamoto Musashi stayed at the Hosokawa daimyō's invitation while completing his The Book of Five Rings.

In the Meiji period, the provinces of Japan were converted into prefectures. Maps of Japan and Higo Province were reformed in the 1870s.[2] At the same time, the province continued to exist for some purposes. For example, Higo is explicitly recognized in treaties in 1894 (a) between Japan and the United States and (b) between Japan and the United Kingdom.[3]

Shrines and temples

Aso-jinja was the chief Shinto shrine (ichinomiya) of Higo.[4]

Historical districts

See also

Notes
  1. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Higo" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 310, p. 3190, at Google Books.
  2. Nussbaum, "Provinces and prefectures" at p. 780.
  3. US Department of State. (1906). A digest of international law as embodied in diplomatic discussions, treaties and other international agreements (John Bassett Moore, ed.), Vol. 5, p. 759.
  4. "Nationwide List of Ichinomiya," p. 3 Archived 2013-05-17 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved 2011-10-29.

References
  • Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5; OCLC 58053128
  • Papinot, Edmond. (1910). Historical and Geographic Dictionary of Japan. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaisha. OCLC 77691250
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