thumb|Map of the "Land of Iesso" by French cartographer [[Alain Manesson Mallet (1683)]]

is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the people and the lands to the northeast of the Japanese island of Honshu. This included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, and sometimes included Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

In reference to the people of that region, the same two kanji used to write the word Ezo can also be read Emishi. The descendants of these people are most likely related to the Ainu people of today.

Etymology

Japanese sources that include an etymology describe Ezo as probably originally a borrowing from the Ainu word meaning . The term is first attested in Japanese in a text from 1153 in reference to any of the non-Japanese people living in the northeast of Honshū, and then later in 1485 in reference to the northern islands where these people lived, primarily Hokkaido, Karafuto (i.e. Sakhalin), and the Kuril Islands. This book, which was published in Japan in 1785, described the Ezo region and its people.

In 1832, the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland supported the posthumous abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation of . Julius Klaproth was the editor, completing the task which was left incomplete by the death of the book's initial editor, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat.

Subdivisions

or () was divided into several districts. The first was the Wajinchi, or 'Japanese Lands', which covered the Japanese settlements on and around the Oshima Peninsula. The rest of Ezo was known as the (), or 'Ainu Lands'. There were also Japanese people who moved from other places to the coastal areas of Ezochi. Ezochi was in turn divided into three sections: North Ezochi, which covered southern Sakhalin; West Ezochi, which included the northern half of Hokkaidō; and East Ezochi, which included the populous southern and eastern Hokkaidō and the Kuril Islands.

See also

  • Ainu people
  • Emishi
  • Republic of Ezo
  • Jeddo, Japan, a former romanization of the name of Edo, now Tokyo

Notes

References

  • Cullen, Louis M. (2003). A History of Japan, 1582-1941: Internal and External Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; ; OCLC 50694793
  • Hayashi, Shihei. (1786). . Edo: Manuscript. OCLC 44014900
  • Klaproth, Julius. (1832). San kokf tsou ran to sets, ou Aperçu général des trois royaumes. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. OCLC 2563166; also OCLC 561284561
  • Waseda University — Hayashi Shihei. (1785). 三国通覧図説 (Sangoku Tsuran Zusetsu)
  • Maps of Ezo, Sakhalin, and Kuril Islands from 1854

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