Musashi Province


Musashi Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called Bushū. The province encompassed Kawasaki and Yokohama. Musashi bordered on Kai, Kōzuke, Sagami, Shimōsa, and Shimotsuke Provinces.
Musashi was the largest province in the Kantō region.

Name

The name Musashi, recorded in early records as 牟射志 muzasi, has been conjectured to be of Ainu origin. It has no apparent meaning in Japanese, but mun-sar-i or mun-sar-ihi is a hypothetical Ainu form that would mean "marsh/wetland of weeds/inedible or otherwise useless plants," with Musashi in the middle of the Kantō Plain.

History

Musashi had its ancient capital in modern Fuchū, Tokyo, and its provincial temple in what is now Kokubunji, Tokyo. By the Sengoku period, the main city was Edo, which became the dominant city of eastern Japan. Edo Castle was the headquarters of Tokugawa Ieyasu before the Battle of Sekigahara and became the dominant city of Japan during the Edo period, being renamed Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration.
Hikawa-jinja was designated as the chief Shinto shrine of the province;
and there are many branch shrines.
The former province gave its name to the battleship of the Second World War Musashi.

Timeline of important events

monument in Saitama
Musashi Province had 21 districts and then added one later.