Dewa

Dewa Province (Japanese: 出羽国, Dewa no kuni) was a historic province of Japan located in the Tōhoku region on the island of Honshu. It covered the area of the modern prefectures of Akita and Yamagata and bordered Mutsu to the south and Echigo to the west, with a coastline along the Sea of Japan. The province encompassed a mix of coastal plains and mountainous interior, shaping its economy and settlement patterns over the centuries.

In early and medieval Japan, Dewa functioned as an administrative unit within the broader provincial system. During the Edo period it was divided for governance into two sub-provinces, Uzen in the west and Ugo in the east, corresponding largely to today’s Yamagata and Akita prefectures. The region was ruled by powerful samurai clans at various times, notably the Mogami and Date, whose domains played significant roles in the political and military history of northern Honshu.

Following the Meiji Restoration, the old provincial system was reorganized as part of the modern prefecture framework. The han system was abolished in 1871, and by the mid-1870s Dewa’s territories had been incorporated into the newly created Akita and Yamagata Prefectures. The name Dewa persists in historical literature and in cultural references, and it remains part of local identity in some place names and regional contexts.