Owari Province

Map of Japanese provinces with province highlighted

Owari, formally written as Owari no Kuni (尾張国) was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of present day Aichi prefecture. Its abbreviation is Bishu (尾州).

The ancient capital of Owari was near Inazawa in the western part of the province. Two of the most famous warlord generals of Japan's Sengoku period, Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, were natives of Owari province, and Oda had a castle at Kiyosu.

Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa shogunate with its castle at Nagoya and placed one of his sons in charge of the Owari Han, the largest han in the Tokugawa family holdings outside of the shogunate itself.

In 1871 with the abolition of feudal domains and the establishment of prefectures (Haihan Chiken) after the Meiji Restoration, the provinces of Owari and Mikawa were combined to eventually establish Aichi prefecture in late 1872.

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