Suruga Province (駿河国 Suruga no kuni) was an old province in the area that is today the central part of Shizuoka prefecture.[1] It was sometimes called Sunshū (駿州). Suruga bordered on Izu, Kai, Sagami, Shinano, and Tōtōmi provinces; and had access to the Pacific Ocean through Suruga Bay.
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Suruga was one of the original provinces of Japan established in the Nara period under the Taihō Code. The original capital of the province was located in what is now Numazu , which also had the Kokubun-ji and the Ichinomiya (Mishima Taisha) of the province. Under the Engishiki classification system, Suruga was ranked as a "major country" (上国) , and was governed by a Kuni no miyatsuko.
In a 680 AD cadastral reform, the districts forming Izu Province were administratively separated from Suruga, and the provincial capital was relocated to the right bank of the Abe River in what is now Shizuoka City.
Records of Suruga during the Heian period are sparse, but during the Kamakura period, Suruga was under direct control of the Hōjō clan, and with the development of the Kamakura Shogunate came increased traffic on the Tōkaidō road connecting Kamakura with Kyoto. The province came under the control of the Imagawa clan for much of the Sengoku period, and the Imagawa made efforts to introduce the customs and rituals of the kuge aristocracy to their capital. After Imagawa Yoshimoto was defeated by Oda Nobunaga at the Battle of Okehazama, the province taken by Takeda Shingen of Kai, and in turn by Tokugawa Ieyasu from Mikawa and Tōtōmi.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi forced the Tokugawa to exchange their domains for the provinces of the Kantō region, and reassigned Sumpu Castle to one of his retainers, Nakamura Kazuichi. However, after the defeat of the Toyotomi at the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu recovered his former domains, and made Sumpu Castle his home after he formally retired from the position of Shōgun.
During the Edo period, Suruga prospered due to its location on the Tōkaidō, and numerous post towns developed. The Tokugawa Shogunate forbid the construction of bridges on the major rivers of Suruga Province (such as the Ōi River) for defensive purposes, which further led to town development on the major river crossings.
At the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Suruga Province was divided among several Domains:
| Domain | Daimyo | Revenue (koku) | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Numazu Domain | Mizuno | 50,000 | fudai |
| Tanaka Domain | Honda | 40,000 | fudai |
| Ojima Domain | Matsudaira (Takiwaki) | 10,000 | fudai |
During this period, the major urban center of Sumpu remained a tenryō territory, administered directly the Shōgun by the Sumpu jōdai.
After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the last Tokugawa Shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned to Suruga to rule the short-lived Shizuoka Domain until the abolition of the han system in 1871. Suruga was subsequently merged with the neighboring provinces of Tōtōmi and Izu (less the Izu Islands) to form modern Shizuoka Prefecture.
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