Saturday, April 26, 2008

HISTORY OF KANAGAWA PREFECTURE, JAPAN




Kanagawa Prefecture was first inhabited by humans 30,000 years ago. Its mild climate and propagation of plants and animals made the area ideal for people who lived on nature at the time.

Around the end of the 11th century, local strongmen developed into proprietary lords. The proprietary lords typically donated their lands to nobles, large temples, and shrines in Kyoto but still exercised control over the estates as resident managers. As time went on, the proprietary lords became samurais and established military supremacy in eastern Japan.

In early modern times,the region of Kanagawa
Prefecture consisted of two separate provinces.
The east was named Musashi-no-knui and governed by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the capital of Edo or today’s Tokyo. The west was Sagami-no-kuni governed by a feudal lord whose castle was located in Odawara.

The industrialization period in the 18th century forced Japan to opens its ports to the western countries for use of their raw materials. Up to this time, Japan had isolated itself with a strict seclusion policy. The port of Yokohama developed into an extremely prosperous port for Japan.

In the 1930’s, Kanagawa became known as the "military city" because of the Yokohama port sitting on the mouth of Tokyo. After the surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces in 1945, Kanagawa became home to the reconstruction process. The Allied Forces occupied the region while the rebuilding and democratic reforms took place. Today, the Yokohama port is still the headquarters to the U.S. 7th Fleet and the Japanese Self-Defense Fleet.

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