Shinano

Shinano is a Japanese toponym with several prominent uses in geography and history. The term most commonly refers to Shinano Province, a former province in central Honshu that roughly corresponds to the modern Nagano Prefecture. It is also associated with the Shinano River, Japan’s longest river, and with the Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Shinano, a World War II vessel.

Shinano Province existed from the early history of Japan until the Meiji period, and its territory largely overlaps the present-day prefecture of Nagano. The name Shinano has persisted in regional place names and cultural references within the area.

The Shinano River (Shinano-gawa) flows through central Honshu from the Japanese Alps to the Sea of Japan, draining into Niigata Prefecture. It is widely recognized as Japan’s longest river, providing crucial irrigation and transportation routes in the region.

In naval history, the name Shinano was given to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft carrier Shinano. Built from a Yamato-class hull and completed as an aircraft carrier in 1944, it was torpedoed and sunk by a US Navy submarine in November 1944, becoming the largest ship ever sunk by a submarine.