The modern reconstruction of the Heian Palace Daigokuden in Heian Jingū, Kyoto
The Heian Palace was the original imperial palace of Heian-kyō, the capital of Japan from 794 to 1227. In Japan, this palace is called Daidairi. The palace, which served as the imperial residence and the administrative centre of Japan for most of the Heian Period, was located at the north-central location of the city in accordance with the Chinese models used for the design of the capital. The palace consisted of a large rectangular walled enclosure, which contained several ceremonial and administrative buildings including the government ministries. Inside this enclosure was the separately walled residential compound of the emperor or the Inner Palace. In addition to the emperor's living quarters, the Inner Palace contained the residences of the imperial consorts, as well as certain official and ceremonial buildings more closely linked to the person of the emperor. The original role of the palace was to manifest the centralised government model adopted by Japan from China in the 7th century—the Daijō-kan and its subsidiary Eight Ministries. The palace was designed to provide an appropriate setting for the emperor's residence, the conduct of great affairs of state, and the accompanying ceremonies. While the residential function of the palace continued until the 12th century, the facilities built for grand state ceremonies began to fall into disuse by the 9th century. This was due to both the abandonment of several statutory ceremonies and procedures and the transfer of several remaining ceremonies into the smaller-scale setting of the Inner Palace. (Full article...)
Banknotes: Empire of Japan. Reproduction: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution
The Japanese-issued Netherlands Indies gulden was the currency issued by the Japanese Empire when it occupied the Dutch East Indies during World War II. Following the Dutch capitulation in March 1942, the Japanese closed all banks, seized assets and currency, and assumed control of the economy in the territory. They began issuing military banknotes, as had previously been done in other occupied territories. These were printed in Japan, but retained the name of the pre-war currency and replaced the Dutch gulden at par. From 1943 the military banknotes were replaced by identical bank-issued notes printed within the territory, and the currency was renamed the roepiah from 1944. The currency was replaced by the Indonesian rupiah in 1946, one year after the Japanese surrender and the country's independence.
This note, denominated ten gulden, is part of the 1942 series.
The keep of Nagoya Castle located in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. Originally built around 1525, the castle was used as the District army headquarters and as a POW camp during World War II. During the bombing of Japan, the castle was burnt down in a USAF air raid on May 14, 1945. It was reconstructed in 1959 and is currently under exhibition.
Asahi Breweries is a Japanese global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food business group. This photograph, taken during the blue hour with a full moon, shows the headquarters of Asahi Breweries in Sumida, Tokyo, as viewed from the wharf on the Sumida River near Azuma Bridge. The Asahi Beer Hall, topped by the Asahi Flame, designed by Philippe Starck, is visible on the right, with the Tokyo Skytree in the background on the left.
Flowering Plum Tree (after Hiroshige), a copy of the ukiyo-e woodblock print Plum Park in Kameido by the Japanese artist Hiroshige. Completed in 1887, this painting is one of several Japanese-influenced works created by Vincent van Gogh after the opening up of Japan. In his copy, van Gogh ignored the shading present in the trunk and background of Hiroshige's image, which there implied age, and instead used colours with more "passion" and "youthfulness".
One part of five in the set Extermination of Evil, this hanging scrolls was originally part of a handscroll known as the "second edition of the Masuda family Hell Scroll" before being cut into sections. The God of Heavenly Punishment is shown consuming the ox-headed deity Gozu Tennō, the god of pestilence.
The Japanese government-issued dollar was a form of currency issued between 1942 and 1945 for use within the territories of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei, under occupation by Imperial Japan during World War II. The currency, informally referred to as "banana money", was released solely in the form of banknotes, as metals were considered essential to the war effort. The languages used on the notes were reduced to English and Japanese. Each note bears a different obverse and reverse design, but all have a similar layout, and were marked with stamped block letters that begin with "M" for "Malaya". This 1942 five-cent Japanese-issued banknote is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
Other denominations: '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000000D-QINU`"'
The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in the clan's dissolution. Divided into two stages (the winter campaign and the summer campaign), and lasting from 1614 to 1615, the siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the shogunate's establishment. This eight-metre-long (26 ft) painting, titled The Summer Battle of Osaka Castle and executed on a Japanese folding screen, illustrates Osaka Castle under siege, and was commissioned by the daimyoKuroda Nagamasa, who took a team of painters with him to the battlefield to record the event. The painting depicts 5071 people and 21 generals, and is held in the collection of Osaka Castle.
Before the outbreak of World War I, German naval ships were located in the Pacific; Tsingtao developed into a major seaport while the surrounding Kiautschou Bay area was leased to Germany since 1898. During the war, Japanese and British Allied troops besieged the port in 1914 before capturing it from the German and Austro-Hungarian Central Powers, occupying the city and the surrounding region. It served as a base for the exploitation of the natural resources of Shandong province and northern China, and a "New City District" was established to furnish the Japanese colonists with commercial sections and living quarters. Tsingtao eventually reverted to Chinese rule by 1922.
Ema are small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshipers write their prayers or wishes. They are then left hanging up at a shrine where the kami (spirits or gods) can read them. These ema were placed at Meiji Shrine.
A registration card for Louis Wijnhamer (1904–1975), an ethnic Dutch humanitarian who was captured soon after the Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies in March 1942. Prior to the occupation, many ethnic Europeans had refused to leave, expecting the Japanese occupation government to keep a Dutch administration in place. When Japanese troops took control of government infrastructure and services such as ports and postal services, 100,000 European (and some Chinese) civilians were interned in prisoner-of-war camps where the death rates were between 13 and 30 per cent. Wijnhamer was interned in a series of camps throughout Southeast Asia and, after the surrender of Japan, returned to what was now Indonesia, where he lived until his death.
Satoru Iwata (Japanese: 岩田 聡, Hepburn: Iwata Satoru, December 6, 1959 – July 11, 2015) was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015. He was a major contributor in broadening the appeal of video games by focusing on novel and entertaining games rather than top-of-the-line hardware.
Born in Sapporo, Iwata expressed interest in video games from an early age and created his first simple game while in high school. He majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 1980, he joined the game developer HAL Laboratory while attending the university. At HAL, he worked as a programmer and closely collaborated with Nintendo, producing his first commercial game in 1983. Games to which he contributed include EarthBound and many games in the Kirby series. Following a downturn and near-bankruptcy, Iwata became the president of HAL in 1993 at the insistence of Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi and brought financial stability. In the following years, he worked in the development of the Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. series. Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of its corporate planning division in 2000. (Full article...)
Tokushima Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on Shikokuisland. The capital is the city of Tokushima. Long ago, the city of Tokushima belonged to a region known as Myodo-gun. During the first wave of government consolidation following the abolishment of the fiefdom system and creation of prefectures in 1871, it became known by the name of Myodo Prefecture. At the time, it included not only the Awa region to the south, but the Awaji and Awaji Island regions as well. In 1873, it further incorporated the region currently occupied by Kagawa Prefecture. During the second wave of government consolidation on September 5, 1875, the Sanuki Region separated to form modern day Kagawa Prefecture. Then, on August 21, 1876, Awaji Island separated to join Hyogo Prefecture and the Awa region separated to form Kōchi Prefecture. Finally, on March 2, 1880, Myodo Prefecture fully separated from Kōchi Prefecture and became Tokushima Prefecture. Tokushima has many agricultural resources and is the site of large-scale production of many different types of vegetables. The plains north of the Yoshino River are particularly fertile, and the produce here is often shipped to across to mainland Japan in the area around Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto. Produce from Tokushima often claims top shares in markets in the Kansai region. Naruto sweet potatoes, the citrus fruit sudachi, lotus roots and strawberries are particularly prominent.
Image 18Mount Aso 4 pyroclastic flow and the spread of Aso 4 tephra (90,000 to 85,000 years ago). The pyroclastic flow reached almost the whole area of Kyushu, and volcanic ash was deposited of 15 cm in a wide area from Kyushu to southern Hokkaido. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 19A map of Japan's major cities, main towns and selected smaller centers (from Geography of Japan)
Image 33A social hierarchy chart based on old academic theories. Such hierarchical diagrams were removed from Japanese textbooks after various studies in the 1990s revealed that peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were in fact equal and merely social categories. Successive shoguns held the highest or near-highest court ranks, higher than most court nobles. (from History of Japan)
Image 35The Kuril Islands, with their Russian names. The borders of the Treaty of Shimoda (1855) and the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1875) are shown in red. Currently, all islands northeast of Hokkaido are administered by Russia. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 47Samurai could kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population. Edo period, 1798 (from History of Japan)
Image 58Relief map of the land and the seabed of Japan. It shows the surface and underwater terrain of the Japanese archipelago. (from Geography of Japan)
Image 59Hōryū-ji is widely known to be the oldest wooden architecture existing in the world. (from Culture of Japan)
Image 60
Edo period screen depicting the Battle of Sekigahara. It began on 21 October 1600, with a total of 160,000 men facing each other.
Image 81Japanese experts inspect the scene of the alleged railway sabotage on South Manchurian Railway that led to the Mukden Incident and the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. (from History of Japan)
Image 88Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder of the Kamakura shogunate in 1192. This was the first military government in which the shogun with the samurai were the de facto rulers of Japan. (from History of Japan)
This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk·contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Japan}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.