Han system

Common card · No. 240661

Han (Japanese: 藩, "domain") is a Japanese historical term for the estate of a daimyo in the Edo period (1603–1868) and early Meiji period (1868–1912). Han or Bakufu-han (daimyo domain) served as a system of de facto administrative divisions of Japan alongside the de jure provinces until they were abolished in the 1870s. This system had been taken from the establishment in Qin-era China in which 藩 (pinyin: fān) originally meant a "fenced region" sensu stricto, but had extended to the sense of a frontier (equivalent to the European march) and later an imperial vassal state in relation to the Emperor's power.

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