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Kaga Domain

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Through Japan

Lab · Class 6–12Archaeology & Discovery

The Kaga Domain was based at Kanazawa Castle in Kaga Province, in the modern city of Kanazawa, located in the Chūbu region of the island of Honshu. The Kaga Domain was ruled for its existence by the tozama daimyō of the Maeda, and covered most of Kaga Province and Etchū Province and all of Noto Province in the Hokuriku region. The Kaga Domain had an assessed kokudaka of over one million koku, making it by far the largest domain of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Kaga Domain was dissolved in the abolition of the han system in 1871 by the Meiji government and its territory was absorbed into Ishikawa Prefecture and Toyama Prefecture.

History

Maeda Toshiie was a distinguished military commander, a retainer of Oda Nobunaga and a close friend of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. A member of the Council of Five Elders who ruled Japan during the Sengoku period, he was granted the Kaga Domain in 1583. His eldest son, Maeda Toshinaga, supported Tokugawa Ieyasu in his rise to power and was rewarded by an increase in his lands to 1.25 million koku.

Toshinaga was succeeded by his brother Maeda Toshitsune, who created two cadet branches of the clan:

  • Toyama Domain (100,000 koku), headed by descendants of Toshitsune's second son Toshitsugu (1617–1674)
  • Daishōji Domain (100,000 koku), headed by descendants of Toshitsune's fourth son Toshiaki (1638–1692)

A third cadet line was founded by Toshitsune's brother Maeda Toshitaka for his services during the Siege of Osaka. This branch held the Nanokaichi Domain, rated at the minimum of 10,000 koku.

The Maeda clan ruled the Kaga Domain for the entirety of its existence until the abolition of the domains in 1871 after the Meiji Restoration and the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The location of the main Edo residence of the Kaga Domain's daimyō is now the site of the Hongō campus of the University of Tokyo.

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