Higo Province (肥後国, Higo no kuni?) was an old province of Japan in the area that is today Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. It was sometimes called Hishū (肥州?), with Hizen Province. Higo bordered on Chikugo, Bungo, Hyūga, Ōsumi, and Satsuma Provinces.
The castle town of Higo was usually at Kumamoto City. During the Muromachi Period, Higo was held by the Kikuchi clan, but they were dispossessed during the Sengoku Period, and the province was occupied by neighboring lords, including the Shimazu clan of Satsuma, until Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Kyūshū and gave Higo to his retainers, first Sassa Narimasa and later Kato Kiyomasa. The Kato were soon stripped of their lands, and the region was given to the Hosokawa clan.
During the Sengoku Period, Higo was a major center for Christianity in Japan, and it is also the location where Miyamoto Musashi stayed at the Hosokawa daimyo's invitation while completing his The Book of Five Rings.
In the Meiji period, the provinces of Japan were converted into prefectures. Maps of Japan and Higo Province were reformed in the 1870s.
Read more about Higo Province: Shrines and Temples
Famous quotes containing the word province:
“Female Virtues are of a Domestick turn. The Family is the proper Province for Private Women to Shine in. If they must be showing their Zeal for the Publick, let it not be against those who are perhaps of the same Family, or at least of the same Religion or Nation, but against those who are the open, professed, undoubted Enemies of their Faith, Liberty, and Country.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)