Shimotsuke Province

Shimotsuke Province (下野国, Shimotsuke-no kuni^?) is an old province of Japan in the area of Tochigi Prefecture in the Kanto region.^[1] It was sometimes called Yashū (野州^?) or Shimotsuke-shū (下野州^?).

The ancient capital of the province was near the city of Tochigi, but in feudal times the main center of the province was near the modern capital, Utsunomiya.

History

Different parts of Shimotsuke were held by a variety of small daimyo during the Sengoku period.

• 1150 (Kyūan 6, 12th month): Minamoto-no Yoshikane, the head of the Ashikaga clan, was established in Shimotsuke Province.^[2]

Tokugawa Ieyasu's tomb and shrine are located at Nikkō, in Shimotsuke.

Futarasan jinja was designated as the chief Shinto shrine (ichinomiya) for the province.^[3]

See also

• Keno Province
• Kōzuke Province

Notes

References

• Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 10-ISBN 0-674-01753-6; 13-ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5; OCLC 58053128
• Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Odai Ichiran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. OCLC 5850691.

External links

• Shimotsuke no kuni in Iwanami Nihonshi Jiten (岩波日本史辞典), CD-ROM Version. Iwanami Shoten, 1999–2001.