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Gokishichidō (五畿七道, "five provinces and seven circuits") was the name for ancient administrative units organized in Japan during the Asuka Period (AD 538–710), as part of a legal and governmental system borrowed from the Chinese. Though these units did not survive as administrative structures beyond the Muromachi Period (1336–1573), they did remain important geographical entities until the 19th century. The Gokishichidō consisted of five provinces in the Kinai (畿内) or capital region, plus seven dō (道) or circuits, each of which contained provinces of its own.
Contents
When Hokkaido was included as a circuit after the defeat of the Republic of Ezo in 1869, the system was briefly called Gokihachidō (五畿八道, "five provinces and eight circuits") until the abolition of the han system in 1871.
Five Provinces
The five Kinai provinces were local areas in and around the imperial capital (first Heijō-kyō at Nara, then Heian-kyō at Kyōto). They were:
Seven Circuits
The seven dō or circuits were administrative areas stretching away from the Kinai region in different directions. Running through each of the seven areas was an actual road of the same name, connecting the imperial capital with all of the provincial capitals along its route. The seven dō were:
Gokaidō
The Gokishichidō roads should not be confused with the Edo Five Routes (五街道 Gokaidō), which were the five major roads leading to Edo during the Edo Period (1603–1867). The Tōkaidō was one of the five routes, but the others were not.
Regional perimeters
At the right, the graphic illustration of the ancient geographic regions presents a modern formulation of an ancient map. The straightforward modification of a current prefectural map is helpful because it makes use of a familiar template; however, this helpful graphic is somewhat misleading because it implies a too-simple congruence between the current prefectural boundaries and the inevitable "fuzzy logic" of regional boundaries.
A few Japanese regions, such as Hokuriku and San'yō, still retain their ancient Gokishichidō names. Other parts of Japan, namely Hokkaidō and the Ryukyu Islands, were not included in the Gokishichidō because they were not colonized by Japan until the 19th century, just as the Gokishichidō geographic divisions and the feudal han domains were being replaced with the modern system of prefectures. Initially the government tried to organize Hokkaidō as an eighth dō (hence the name), but it was soon consolidated into a single prefecture.