Tōtōmi Province (遠江国,Tōtōmi-no kuni) was aprovince of Japan in the area of Japan that is today westernShizuoka Prefecture.[1] Tōtōmi bordered onMikawa,Suruga andShinano Provinces. Its abbreviated form name wasEnshū (遠州). The origin of its name is the old name ofLake Hamana.
Tōtōmi was one of the original provinces of Japan established in theNara period under theTaihō Code. The original capital of the province was located in what is nowIwata, and was named Mitsuke – a name which survived into modern times asMitsuke-juku, apost station on theTōkaidō. Under theEngishiki classification system, Tōtōmi was ranked as a "superior country" (上国) in terms of importance, and one of the 16 "middle countries" (中国) in terms of distance from the capital.
During the earlyMuromachi period, Tōtōmi was ruled nominally by theImagawa clan before coming under control of theShiba clan. However, by theSengoku period, the Imagawa recovered Tōtōmi and effectively annexed it to Suruga Province. After the defeat of the Imagawa at theBattle of Okehazama, Tōtōmi was divided between the powerful warlordsTakeda Shingen ofKai andTokugawa Ieyasu of Mikawa. To consolidate his new holdings, Tokugawa Ieyasu constructedHamamatsu Castle, which effectively became the capital of the province, although parts of Tōtōmi continued to be contested between the Tokugawa and Takeda until Shingen's death.
After theBattle of Odawara and the rise to power ofToyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu was forced to trade his domains in theTōkai region for theKantō region instead. Hamamatsu was relinquished to theHorii clan and subsidiaryKakegawa Castle toYamauchi Kazutoyo. After the establishment of theTokugawa shogunate, the Tokugawa recovered their lost territories, and reassigned Tōtōmi to variousfudai daimyōs.
During the Edo period, theTōkaidō road fromEdo toKyoto passed through Tōtōmi, withpost stations at several locations. For defensive purposes, theTokugawa shogunate forbid the construction of bridges on the major rivers (such as at theTenryū River), which further led to town development on the major river crossings.
At the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tōtōmi Province was divided among severalfeudal domains, which were assigned to closefudai retainers. Following the defeat of the Tokugawa shogunate during theBoshin War of theMeiji Restoration, the last Tokugawa shōgun,Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned to Suruga in 1868 to rule the short-livedShizuoka Domain, and the existingdaimyōs in Tōtōmi were reassigned to other territories, mostly inKazusa Province
After theabolition of the han system in 1871 by the newMeiji government, during the first wave of prefectural mergers (第1次府県統合daiichiji fu/ken tōgō), the new prefectures in Tōtōmi were merged intoHamamatsu Prefecture, with enclaves of other prefectures/exclaves in other provinces being removed, so that Hamamatsu and Tōtōmi became basically contiguous. On August 21, 1876, Hamamatsu was merged intoShizuoka Prefecture, which by that time comprised all of Suruga andIzu provinces, to form an enlarged Shizuoka Prefecture; it reached practically its present-day extent in 1878 when a part of Izu Province, namely the Izu Islands, were transferred from Shizuoka to Tokyo.
Many formersamurai of the feudal domains in Tōtōmi, now unemployed due to the sudden end to feudalism, were settled in theMakinohara region, where they developed thegreen tea industry. With the coming of theTōkaidō Main Line railway, Hamamatsu developed rapidly into a major commercial and industrial center, especially in connection with the cotton and silk-spinning industries.
Tōtōmi Province consisted of twelve districts:
Generally, thekokudaka nominal income did not correspond to the actual income from a given village/district/province, and in addition there were some, especially non-agricultural, sources of taxable or direct income that were not always accurately represented in the baku/han kokudaka system of the Edo period.
Note: Thekokudaka given in the table is the total from within & without the province, not restricted to the parts of the domain actually located in Tōtōmi.
| Name | type | daimyō | kokudaka | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shogunate territories &Hatamoto estates (→1868Imperial territories) | ||||
| in all twelve districts of Tōtōmi; ignoring spiritual (shrine/temple) holdings, tiny Hamana & Iwata are entirely shogunate domain | ||||
| Domains seated in Tōtōmi Province | ||||
| Hamamatsu Domain | fudai | Inoue | 60,000koku | |
| Kakegawa Domain | fudai | Ōta | 50,000koku | |
| Sagara Domain | fudai | Tanuma | 10,000koku | |
| Yokosuka Domain | fudai | Nishio | 10,000koku | |
| Domains seated elsewhere with holdings in Tōtōmi | ||||
| Koromo Domain | holdings in (=income from) Haibara and Shūchi districts | |||
| Nishio Domain | holdings in Haibara and Kitō | |||
| Nagashima Domain | holdings in Haibara | |||
| Sasayama Domain | holdings in Haibara and Kitō | |||
| Mikawa-Yoshida Domain | holdings in Kitō and Fuchi | |||
| Shirakawa Domain | holdings in Yamana, Toyoda, Aratama, Inasa | |||
Note: The following figures are taken from the Japanese Wikipedia article, the database and publication series used as the original source are given in the external links.
| District | Villages | approximatekokudaka |
|---|---|---|
| Haibara | 155 | 50,198 |
| Kitō | 149 | 68,905 |
| Saya | 106 | 29,406 |
| Shūchi | 94 | 25,086 |
| Iwata | 1 | 1,041 |
| Yamana | 116 | 39,958 |
| Toyoda | 277 | 55,992 |
| Nagakami | 129 | 30,569 |
| Fuchi | 153 | 49,827 |
| Aratama | 6 | 2,233 |
| Inasa | 54 | 17,927 |
| Hamana | 2 | 1,240 |
| Tōtōmi total | 1,242 | 372,388 |
Media related toTotomi Province at Wikimedia Commons
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