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1872 in Japan

overview of Japan-related events during the year of 1872

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 27, 2025
Entity authorityQ16824889 ↗
Source-derived summary

Events in the year 1872 in Japan.

Incumbents

Emperor: Emperor Meiji

Empress consort: Empress Shōken

Governors

Aichi Prefecture: Iseki Ushitora (starting April 2)

Akita Prefecture: Shima Yoshitake (January 29-July 29), Sugio Magoshichiro (starting July 29)

Aomori Prefecture: J. Hishida

Fukui Prefecture: Kotobuki Murata

Fukushima Prefecture:

until January 20: Tomoharu Kiyooka

January 20-June 2: Miyahara

starting June 2: Taihe Yasujo

Gifu Prefecture: Joren Hasegawa

Gunma Prefecture: Sada Aoyama

Hiroshima Prefecture: Date Muneoki

Ibaraki Prefecture:

until July 10: Yamaguchi

August 8-August 13: Motsuke Nomura

starting August 25: Toru Watanabe

Iwate Prefecture: Korekiyo Shima

Kagawa Prefecture:

until October 17: Mohei Hayashi

October 17-November 28: Kan'ichi Nakamura

starting November 28: Mohei Hayashi

Kochi Prefecture: Yuzo Hayashi (until November 26), Iwasaki Nagatake (starting November 26)

Kyoto Prefecture: Hase Nobuatsu

Miyagi Prefecture: Ryo Shioya (starting January 8)

Nagano Prefecture: Tachiki Kenzen

Niigata Prefecture: Hirimatsu (starting November 20)

Oita Prefecture: Kei Morishita

Osaka Prefecture: Yotsutsuji Nishi

Saga Prefecture:

until July 12: Sadao Koga

July 12-December 22: Tesshu Yamaoka

starting December 22: Taku Shigeru

Saitama Prefecture: Morihide Nomura

Shiname Prefecture:

until March 30: Masami Terada

March 30-September 27: Tanenori Ikeda

starting September 27: Kamiyama Ren

Tochigi Prefecture: Miki Nabeshima

Tokyo: Yuri Kousei (until September 7), Tadahiro Okubo (starting September 7)

Toyama Prefecture: Miyoshi Zhou Liang

Yamagata Prefecture: ......

Events

date unknown

Tokyo National Museum is founded.

The Imperial Library is established.

Tomioka silk mill, Japan's first modern model silk reeling factory, is established by the government.

The Ryukyu Domain is created when the emperor changes the title of Shō Tai, the Ryukyu Kingdom's monarch (Ryūkyū-koku-ō), to that of a domain head (Ryūkyū-han-ō). The former Ryukyu Kingdom thus becomes a han.

Births

January 22 – Katai Tayama, novelist (d. 1930)

March 25 – Tōson Shimazaki, writer (d. 1943)

May 2 – Ichiyō Higuchi, writer (d.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1872 in Japan” as overview of Japan-related events during the year of 1872. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Japan, overview and Japan-related.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1872, 1930, 1943—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Japan, overview and Japan-related providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1872 in Japan”, the useful work is to connect “overview of Japan-related events during the year of 1872” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16824889. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1872, 1930 and 1943.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1872 in Japan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.