Wadō

Overview

Wadō (和銅) was a Japanese era name (年号, nengō; "year name") that followed Keiun and preceded Reiki. The era spanned January 708 through September 715, covering the final years of the Asuka period (538–710) and the opening years of the Nara period. The reigning monarch throughout the Wadō era was Empress Genmei (元明天皇, Genmei-tennō).

The era name is remembered primarily for two things: the discovery of natural copper deposits that gave the era its name, and the establishment of Japan's first permanent capital at Heijō-kyō in 710. Both events marked a shift from the older Yamato polity toward a more centrally administered state modelled on Chinese practice.

What Defined the Era

The Wadō era opened with a stroke of economic fortune. In 708, copper was discovered in the Chichibu district of Musashi Province, in what is now Saitama Prefecture. The find was presented to the court as a gift, and the era name was changed to Wadō to commemorate it. The name itself means "Japanese copper," a deliberate contrast with the imported Chinese copper that had previously been used for coinage.

That same year, the court began minting Japan's first official copper coins, the Wadōkaihō (和同開珎). The coins were modelled on Chinese Tang dynasty cash coins, round with a square hole in the centre, and they circulated for decades. The minting marked an attempt to create a unified currency for the growing state, though in practice barter and rice continued to serve as common mediums of exchange in many regions.

The era also saw the completion of the Taihō Code's administrative reforms take firmer shape. Empress Genmei's court issued a series of edicts reorganising provincial governance, standardising weights and measures, and reinforcing the system of census registration and land allocation introduced in the preceding century.

Key Events

In 708, the court ordered the construction of a new capital at Heijō-kyō, located in the northern part of the Nara Basin. The city was laid out on a grid plan inspired by the Tang capital Chang'an, with a broad central avenue running south from the imperial palace. The move was completed in 710, when the court formally relocated from Fujiwara-kyō, the capital established by Empress Jitō in 694.

The relocation marked the beginning of the Nara period, and Heijō-kyō would remain the imperial seat for most of the eighth century. The city's establishment was part of a broader pattern of consolidating imperial authority through monumental architecture and centralised administration.

In 711, the court issued an edict ordering the compilation of local records, including geographic descriptions, products, and oral traditions from each province. These records, known as fudoki (風土記), were intended to give the central government detailed knowledge of its territories. The Hitachi Fudoki, the Izumo Fudoki, and the Harima Fudoki survive in full or in part and remain valuable sources for the period.

In 712, the court completed the Kojiki (古事記, "Records of Ancient Matters"), a chronicle of Japanese mythology and early imperial history compiled at Empress Genmei's command. The text was written in a hybrid of Chinese and Japanese, using Chinese characters for their phonetic value in places, and it became a foundational document for later Shinto and imperial ideology.

In 713, the court ordered the establishment of a new system of provincial roads, and in 715 the era came to an end when the court changed the era name to Reiki. The change was announced in September of that year, after a reign of seven years and eight months.

The Name in Japanese

The era name is written 和銅.

• Kana reading: わどう
• Romaji: Wadō

The name breaks down into two kanji:

• 和 — read as わ (wa) in this word. The character means "harmony," "peace," or "Japan." It is the same character used in the name 大和 (Yamato), the ancient name for Japan, and in 和食 (washoku), "Japanese food." In this era name, it carries the sense of "Japanese" as opposed to foreign.

• 銅 — read as どう (dō) in this word. The character means "copper." It appears in modern compounds such as 銅像 (dōzō, "bronze statue") and 銅山 (dōzan, "copper mine"). The character is composed of the metal radical 金 (kin, "gold" or "metal") on the left, and the phonetic component 同 (dō) on the right.

Together, 和銅 means "Japanese copper." The name was chosen to celebrate the discovery of native copper in Musashi Province, which the court saw as a sign of the realm's natural wealth and a basis for minting its own coinage. The pairing of 和 with 銅 also carried a political message: Japan was asserting its capacity to produce its own currency, independent of Chinese imports.

How the Era Name Works

The Japanese era name system, called nengō (年号), was adopted from Chinese practice in the seventh century. An era name is a short phrase of two to four kanji chosen by the court to mark the reign of an emperor or a portion of it. The name is meant to express an auspicious ideal — peace, prosperity, virtue, or a notable event — and it becomes the official way of reckoning years during its span.

In the Wadō era, a year would be referred to as "Wadō 1" (和銅元年, Wadō gannen), "Wadō 2" (和銅二年, Wadō ninen), and so on. The first year of an era is called gannen (元年), using the character 元 for "origin" or "first." The system remained in continuous use from 645 until 1868, when the Meiji government adopted the practice of one era name per reign, a system that continues today under the name of the current emperor's reign.

Era names were not changed only at an emperor's accession. The court could change the name mid-reign to mark a favourable omen, to avert misfortune, or to commemorate a significant event. The change from Keiun to Wadō in 708 was exactly such a case: the discovery of copper was treated as a propitious sign, and the era was renamed to honour it. This flexibility made the nengō system a tool of political messaging as much as a method of dating.