Abolition of the han system

The 1871 Meiji reform that dissolved Japan’s feudal domains, or han, and replaced them with prefectures governed by the central state.

Han: A Japanese feudal domain governed by a daimyo under the Tokugawa shogunate. The reform abolished these domains as territorial governments.
Meiji Restoration: The political transformation beginning in 1868 that restored imperial rule and established a new Japanese government. The new regime’s consolidation produced the abolition reform.
Land tax reform of 1873: A Meiji reform that replaced irregular land taxes with a national tax assessed in money on land value. Central administration made nationwide land taxation more feasible.
Domain system: The Tokugawa-era arrangement in which daimyo governed semi-autonomous territories under the shogunate. It distributed authority among lords, unlike the centralized prefectural system.
Prefectures of Japan: Japan’s administrative divisions, governed as subdivisions of the national state. Prefectures replaced the former domains as units of local administration.
Tokugawa shogunate: The military government that ruled Japan from 1603 until 1868. Its domain-based order was the political structure the reform dismantled.
Conscription Ordinance of 1873: The law that introduced universal male military conscription in Meiji Japan. The central state could recruit soldiers nationally rather than depend on domain forces.
Bakuhan system: The political order combining the Tokugawa shogunate’s rule with daimyo-governed domains. Abolition ended the domain component of this dual structure.
Daimyo: Powerful Japanese territorial lords who governed domains and held authority under the shogunate. Former daimyo surrendered their domains and were reassigned as governors before prefectural rule took hold.
Boshin War: The 1868–1869 civil war between forces supporting the shogunate and those backing imperial rule. The war’s outcome enabled the new government to reshape territorial authority.

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