Empire · approximate1910 – 1931 · 21 years
Empire of Japan (1910)
In a single lifetime, Japan went from feudal isolation to the dominant power of East Asia.
What it was
The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended 250 years of Tokugawa shogunate rule and launched Japan on a deliberate program of industrialization and military modernization. By 1942 Japan controlled Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria, much of China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Indochina, and Pacific island chains as far as the Solomons.
Why it mattered
Japan's defeat of Russia in 1905 was the first major modern military victory of an Asian state over a European one, and reshaped global perceptions of European invincibility.
From Wikipedia
The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the period of Japanese history spanning 79 years, starting from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on 3 May 1947. From August 1910 to September 1945, it included the Japanese archipelago, the Kurils, Karafuto, Korea, and Taiwan. The South Seas Mandate and concessions such as the Kwantung Leased Territory were de jure not internal parts of the empire but dependent territories. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis powers, the formalized surrender was issued on 2 September 1945, in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, and the empire's territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago, excluding Okinawa until the handover in 1972.
Wikipedia: Empire of Japan·CC BY-SA 4.0
Borders & accuracy
Dashed borders mark empires whose extent we can date but whose precise frontiers are contested or undocumented.
- SOURCEreconstructed from Natural Earth country boundaries
- DETAILreconstructed-clipped-country
- SNAPSHOT1914
- POLITY TYPEstate
Wars of this empire248
Conflicts whose belligerents name this polity (any of its time-slices), best-documented first.
- World War II1939–45World-changing · 85M dead
- Second Sino-Japanese War1937–45World-changing · 20M dead
- Pacific War1941–45World-changing · 5.0M dead
- Dutch East Indies campaign1941–42World-changing
- Japanese conquest of Burma1941–42World-changing
- Japanese invasion of Malaya1941–42World-changing
- World-changing
- Burma campaign1942–45World-changing
- Battle of Imphal1944World-changing
- Battle of Kohima1944World-changing
- World-changing
- World-changing
- Major conflict · 20M dead
- Major conflict · 500K dead
- Russo-Japanese War1904–05Major conflict · 200K dead
- Major conflict · 200K dead
- Battle of Midway1942Major conflict · 100K dead
- Major conflict · 70K dead
- Major conflict · 3.6K dead
- Major conflict
- Major conflict
- Major conflict
- Hundred Regiments Offensive1940–41Significant · 400K dead
- Significant · 300K dead
+ 224 more in the atlas.
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 1910 and fits the map to these borders.
Cite as: Empire of Japan (1910) (1910 – 1931). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/e/empire-of-japan-1910 · Sources & methodology