Kaga Domain


The Kaga Domain, also known as Kanazawa Domain, was a feudal domain in Edo period Japan, covering most of Kaga Province and Etchū Provinces and all of Noto Province, in the Hokuriku region of Japan. It was centered on Kanazawa Castle in what is now the city of Kanazawa. Throughout its history, it was ruled by the Maeda clan. Kaga Domain had an assessed kokudaka of over one million koku, making it by far the largest of the feudal domains within the Tokugawa shogunate. The location of the main Edo residence of the daimyō of the Kaga Domain is now the site of the Hongō campus of the University of Tokyo.

History

was a distinguished military commander, a retainer of Oda Nobunaga and a close friend of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. A member of the Council of Five Elders who ruled Japan during the Sengoku period, he was granted the Kaga Domain in 1583. His eldest son, Maeda Toshinaga, supported Tokugawa Ieyasu in his rise to power and was rewarded by an increase in his lands to 1.25 million koku.
Toshinaga was succeeded by his brother Maeda Toshitsune, who created two cadet branches of the clan:
A third cadet line was founded by Toshitsune's brother Maeda Toshitaka for his services during the Siege of Osaka. This branch held the Nanokaichi Domain, rated at the minimum of 10,000 koku.
The Maeda clan ruled Kaga until the abolition of the domains in 1871.

Bakumatsu period holdings

As with most domains in the han system, Kaga Domain consisted of discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned kokudaka, based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields. At the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, the domain consisted of the following holdings:
The clan records were preserved over the course of centuries.