Kazusa Province (上総国, Kazusa-no kuni?) was a province of Japan in the area of modern Chiba Prefecture. The province was located in the middle of the Bōsō Peninsula, whose name takes its first kanji from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa provinces. Its abbreviated form name was Sōshū (総州?) or Nansō (南総?). The borders of Kazusa Province were defined as Shimōsa Province to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east, Awa Province to the south, and Tokyo Bay to the west.
Kazusa was classified as one of the provinces of the Tōkaidō. Under the Engishiki classification system, Kazusa was ranked as a "great country" (大国) and a far country (遠国). Along with Kōzuke and Hitachi, it was originally one of the provinces where an imperial prince was nominally assigned as governor.
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)