Empire of Japan

This article is about the former empire. For the modern state, see Japan.

The Empire of Japan^[c] (Japanese : 大日本帝國) also known as Imperial Japan was a historical Nation State and great power during the period from the Meiji Restoration to the Japanese defeat in World War II. It ruled the Home Islands of Japan and many other areas. The Emperors during this time, were Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito),from 1868-1912 and Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito) from 1912-1926 and Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) from 1926-1989 . It is considered to go from the year 1868 to 1945. Hirohito was still emperor of Japan after the empire dissolved in 1947 . Hirohito was emperor of Japan until his death in 1989 .

Empire of Japan 大日本帝國 Dai Nippon Teikoku or Dai Nihon Teikoku
1868–1947
Flag Imperial Seal
Motto:  1868–1912: 五箇条の御誓文 Gokajō no Goseimon (Charter Oath or The Oath in Five Articles)
Anthem: (1869–1945) "Kimigayo" (君が代) "His Imperial Majesty's Reign"[1][2][a] noicon
The Empire of Japan at its peak in 1942:   Japan   Colonies (Korea, Taiwan, Karafuto) / Mandates   Puppet states / Protectorates / Occupied territories
Capital	Kyoto (1868–1869)[3] Tokyo City (1869–1943) Tokyo (1943–1947)
Largest city	Tokyo City (1868–1943) Tokyo (1943–1947)
Official languages	Japanese
Recognised regional languages	Hokkien Mandarin Hakka Korean
Religion	De jure: Secular state De facto: State Shinto (state ideology)[b]
Government	Unitary parliamentary semi-constitutional monarchy (1889–1947) (de jure)[7] Unitary divine theocratic absolute monarchy (de facto) under Daijō-kan[8] (1868–1885) under a Toseiha military dictatorship (1931–1940) under a fascist Shōwa Statist totalitarian military dictatorship (1940–1945) under military occupation (1945–1947)
Emperor
• 1868–1912	Meiji
• 1912–1926	Taishō
• 1926–1947	Shōwa
Prime Minister
• 1885–1888 (first)	Itō Hirobumi
• 1946–1947 (last)	Shigeru Yoshida
Legislature	None (rule by decree) (1868-1871) House of Peers (1871-1889) Imperial Diet (since 1889)
• Upper house	House of Peers (1889-1947)
• Lower house	House of Representatives (from 1890)
Historical era	Meiji • Taishō • Shōwa
• Meiji Restoration	3 January 1868[9]
• Meiji Constitution	11 February 1889
• First Sino-Japanese War	25 July 1894
• Russo-Japanese War	8 February 1904
• World War I	23 August 1914
• Mukden Incident	18 September 1931
• Second Sino-Japanese War	7 July 1937
• World War II	7 December 1941
• Surrender of Japan	2 September 1945
• Reconstituted	3 May 1947[7]
Area
1938[10]	1,984,000 km2 (766,000 sq mi)
1942[11]	7,400,000 km2 (2,900,000 sq mi)
Population
• 1920	77,700,000a
• 1940	105,200,000b
Currency	Japanese yen Korean yen Taiwanese yen Japanese military currency
Preceded by Succeeded by Tokugawa shogunate Ezo Republic Occupied Japan
56.0 million lived in Japan proper.[12] 73.1 million lived in Japan proper.[12]

Japanese Empire
Japanese name
Kanji	大日本帝国
Hiragana	だいにっぽんていこく だいにほんていこく
Katakana	ダイニッポンテイコク ダイニホンテイコク
Kyūjitai	大日本帝國
Transcriptions Revised Hepburn Dai Nippon Teikoku Dai Nihon Teikoku

In those years, Japan changed greatly. It became one of the most powerful countries in the world. Japan built a powerful Imperial Japanese Armed Forces (IJA and IJN), and changed from an agricultural to an industrial economy. The Japanese began to invade and occupy other near countries like Korea, Taiwan, Manchukuo and part of China to get natural resources

The Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies on September 2, 1945, after a long war against the Allied nations of World War II ending with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Allies occupied the country and made many changes, including a new constitution. Allied occupation and reconstruction of the country continued well into the 1950s.

Other websites

• Imperial Japan Archived 2007-04-09 at the Wayback Machine
• Death of the Father: Hirohito & Imperial Japan

References

1. "Explore Japan National Flag and National Anthem". Retrieved January 29, 2017.
2. "National Symbols". Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
3. Schellinger and Salkin, ed. (1996). "Kyoto". International Dictionary of Historic Places: Asia and Oceania. UK: Routledge. p. 515ff. ISBN 9781884964046.
4. Josephson, Jason Ānanda (2012). The Invention of Religion in Japan. University of Chicago Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0226412344.
5. Thomas, Jolyon Baraka (2014). Japan's Preoccupation with Religious Freedom (Ph.D.). Princeton University. p. 76.
6. Jansen 2002, p. 669. sfn error: no target: CITEREFJansen2002 (help)
7. "Chronological table 5 December 1, 1946 – June 23, 1947". National Diet Library. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
8. Hunter 1984, pp. 31–32. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHunter1984 (help)
9. "One can date the "restoration" of imperial rule from the edict of January 3, 1868." Jansen, p. 334.
10. Harrison, Mark (2000). The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison. Cambridge University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780521785037. Retrieved October 2, 2016.
11. Conrad, Sebastian (2014). "The Dialectics of Remembrance: Memories of Empire in Cold War Japan" (PDF). Comparative Studies in Society and History. 56 (1): 8. doi:10.1017/S0010417513000601. ISSN 0010-4175. JSTOR 43908281. S2CID 146284542. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-07-08. Retrieved 2020-07-07. In 1942, at the moment of its greatest extension, the empire encompassed territories spanning over 7,400,000 square kilometers.
12. Taeuber, Irene B.; Beal, Edwin G. (January 1945). "The Demographic Heritage of the Japanese Empire". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 237. Sage Publications: 65. doi:10.1177/000271624523700108. JSTOR 1025496. S2CID 144547927.
13. Shillony, Ben-Ami (2013). Ben-Ami Shillony – Collected Writings. Routledge. p. 83. ISBN 978-1134252305.

Notes

1. Modified version used in 1880–1945.
2. Although the Empire of Japan officially had no state religion,^[4][5] Shinto played an important part for the Japanese state. Marius Jansen states: "The Meiji government had from the first incorporated, and in a sense created, Shinto, and utilized its tales of the divine origin of the ruling house as the core of its ritual addressed to ancestors 'of ages past'. As the Japanese empire grew the affirmation of a divine mission for the Japanese race was emphasized more strongly. Shinto was imposed on colonial lands in Taiwan and Korea, and public funds were utilized to build and maintain new shrines there. Shinto priests were attached to army units as chaplains, and the cult of war dead, enshrined at the Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo, took on ever greater proportions as their number grew."^[6]
3. Japanese: 大日本帝国, Hepburn: Dai Nippon Teikoku^[13]?