Kai Province - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Map of Japanese provinces with province highlighted

Kai Province (甲斐国, Kai no kuni), also known as Kōshū (甲州), is an old province in Japan in the area of Yamanashi Prefecture on the island of Honshū.[1]

History[change | change source]

View of Kai Province, woodblock print by Hiroshige, 1853
Kai coast, woodblock print by Hokusai, 1830

During the Sengoku period, the warlord Takeda Shingen ruled Kai from his stronghold at Kōfu. After the Takeda, the area was controlled by the Tokugawa clan.[1]

In the Meiji period, the provinces of Japan were converted into prefectures. The maps of Japan and Kai Province were reformed in the 1870s.[2]

The area was briefly renamed Kōfu Prefecture; and it was renamed Yamanashi Prefecture in 1871.[1]

Geography[change | change source]

Kai is west of Tokyo. The province is landlocked. It is in a mountainous region that includes Mount Fuji along its border with Shizuoka Prefecture.

Shrines and Temples[change | change source]

Asama jinja was the chief Shinto shrine (ichinomiya) of Kai. [3]

Related pages[change | change source]

References[change | change source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Kai" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 448.
  2. Nussbaum, "Provinces and prefectures" at p. 780.
  3. "Nationwide List of Ichinomiya," p. 1 Archived 2013-05-17 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved 2012-1-17.

Other websites[change | change source]

Media related to Kai Province at Wikimedia Commons