日本の歴史

Japanese History

Every period, era, battle, ruler and castle — from the Jōmon hunter-gatherers to Reiwa. 2,052 entries, each with the Japanese name, its reading, and the kanji broken down character by character.

Built for people learning Japanese: the history and the language it is written in, on the same page.

The periods 時代

Jōmon period 縄文時代 c. 14,000 BCE – 300 BCE Yayoi period 弥生時代 300 BCE – 300 CE 1 entries Kofun period 古墳時代 300 – 538 1 entries Asuka period 飛鳥時代 538 – 710 45 entries Nara period 奈良時代 710 – 794 45 entries Heian period 平安時代 794 – 1185 224 entries Kamakura period 鎌倉時代 1185 – 1333 110 entries Kenmu Restoration period 建武の新政 1333 – 1336 4 entries Muromachi period 室町時代 1336 – 1573 339 entries Azuchi–Momoyama period 安土桃山時代 1573 – 1603 93 entries Edo period 江戸時代 1603 – 1868 827 entries Meiji period 明治時代 1868 – 1912 290 entries Taishō period 大正時代 1912 – 1926 10 entries Shōwa period 昭和時代 1926 – 1989 5 entries Heisei period 平成時代 1989 – 2019 11 entries Reiwa period 令和時代 2019 – present 4 entries

Browse by type 分類

People 人物1,557 Emperors, shoguns, samurai, monks and poets Events 事件63 Battles, treaties, rebellions and disasters Era names 元号247 All 249 nengō, Taika to Reiwa Places 場所103 Castles, temples and shrines Clans 氏族 The families that shaped the country Domains 藩 The han of the Edo order Provinces 国82 The old provinces before the prefectures

Ways in 案内

The full timeline Every period side by side, in order Search everything By name, kanji, kana or year — instant On this day What happened on September 15

Start here 入門

Ōsumi Province 大隅国 713 province of Japan Izumi Province 和泉国 757 province of Japan Awa Province 安房国 718 province of Japan, now part of Chiba Prefecture Kaga Province 加賀国 823 former province of Japan Mimasaka Province 美作国 713 province of Japan Noto Province 能登国 718 province of Japan Tango Province 丹後国 713 province of Japan Izumo Province 出雲国 710 province of Japan Satsuma Province 薩摩国 702 province of Japan Izu Province 伊豆国 680 province of Japan Bungo Province 豊後国 690 province of Japan Settsu Province 摂津国 793 former province of Japan

How Japanese history is divided

Japanese history is normally split into periods (時代, jidai) named after wherever power sat at the time — Nara, Heian, Kamakura, Edo. The boundaries are conventions rather than hard facts, and different books place some of them a decade apart.

Running alongside the periods is a second, finer system: era names, or nengō (元号). An era name could be declared for a new emperor, or simply to shake off a run of bad luck after a fire or an epidemic, which is why there are 249 of them and only sixteen periods. Dates in Japanese documents are almost always given in nengō — 慶長5年 rather than 1600 — so reading historical Japanese means knowing them.

Since the Meiji era, the rule has been one era name per reign, and it still governs official paperwork in Japan today. A form asking for your birth date in 平成 or 令和 is using a system that started in 645.

Why a Japanese-learning site publishes history

Because the two cannot really be separated. The kanji in 関ヶ原の戦い tell you it was fought at a barrier on a plain. 幕府 (bakufu), the word for the shogunate, literally means "tent government" — a military headquarters that never stopped calling itself temporary, for 700 years. The vocabulary carries the history inside it.

So every entry here gives the Japanese name, its reading in kana, and a breakdown of each kanji that links straight through to that character's full entry in the kanji dictionary.