Dewa Province

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Map of Japanese provinces with province highlighted

Dewa (出羽国; -no kuni) is an old province of Japan, which today composes Yamagata prefecture and Akita prefecture, except for the city of Kazuno and the town of Kosaka.

Dewa was split from Echigo in 708, and slowly stretched north as the Japanese pushed back the indigenous people of northern Honshū. In the Sengoku period the southern region around Yamagata was held by the Mogami clan and the northern part by the Akita clan, both of which fought for Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara.

Dewa was divided into Uzen and Ugo in the Meiji Period before being reorganized into prefectures.