戦国の地図
Where the old provinces were, who held them, and what they are called today.
Sengoku sources locate everything by province — Owari, Kai, Echigo — and none of those names appear on a modern map of Japan. The provinces were replaced by prefectures in 1871, and the boundaries do not match.
This page gives the conversions you need for the people and battles covered on this site, together with the geography that shaped the wars.
| Province | Modern equivalent | Who held it |
|---|---|---|
| Owari | Western Aichi Prefecture | Oda — Nobunaga's and Hideyoshi's home province |
| Mikawa | Eastern Aichi Prefecture | Tokugawa — Ieyasu's home province |
| Suruga and Totomi | Shizuoka Prefecture | Imagawa, later divided between Takeda and Tokugawa |
| Kai | Yamanashi Prefecture | Takeda |
| Shinano | Nagano Prefecture | Contested: Takeda, Uesugi and the Sanada |
| Echigo | Niigata Prefecture | Uesugi |
| Sagami and Musashi | Kanagawa, Tokyo and Saitama | Later Hojo, then Tokugawa after 1590 |
| Mutsu | The northern Tohoku region | Date and rivals |
| Omi | Shiga Prefecture | Contested; the site of Battle of Anegawa and Battle of Shizugatake |
| Yamashiro | Southern Kyoto Prefecture | The capital region — whoever held it claimed national authority |
| Mino | Southern Gifu Prefecture | Saito, then Oda; the site of Battle of Sekigahara |
| Iga | Western Mie Prefecture | Leagues of small households — see Ninja and Shinobi in the Sengoku Period |
| Aki | Western Hiroshima Prefecture | Mori |
| Tosa | Kochi Prefecture | Chosokabe |
| Bungo | Oita Prefecture | Otomo |
| Satsuma | Western Kagoshima Prefecture | Shimazu |
Japan is mountainous, and armies moved along a small number of corridors. The Tokaido, the coastal road between Kyoto and eastern Japan, runs through Owari, Mikawa and Totomi — which is why Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Imagawa Yoshimoto were forced into conflict with each other.
Rice yield determined how many soldiers a lord could keep in the field. The Kanto plain and the Kinai region around Kyoto were rich; Kai and Tosa were poor. Takeda Shingen's flood-control works and gold mines and Chosokabe Motochika's part-time warrior system were both answers to that problem.
The Japan Sea coast had a shorter campaigning season. Uesugi Kenshin and Shibata Katsuie both spent months each year unable to move armies because of snow, which shaped the timing of entire campaigns.
Modern regional names appear constantly in writing about the period. Roughly: Tohoku is the north-east, home of the Date; Kanto is the plain around Tokyo, held by the Hojo; Chubu is the mountainous centre, including Kai and Shinano; Kinai or Kansai is the capital region around Kyoto and Osaka; Chugoku is the western end of the main island, held by the Mori; Shikoku is the smaller island held by the Chosokabe; and Kyushu is the south-western island, divided between the Shimazu, Otomo and Ryuzoji.
1560
Aichi Prefecture
The upset that made Nobunaga and freed Ieyasu.
1553–1564
Nagano Prefecture
Five campaigns, eleven years, and no decision: the era's most famous rivalry.
1575
Aichi Prefecture
Firearms, palisades and the end of the Takeda army.
1600
Gifu Prefecture
One day of fighting that decided the next 265 years.