Yamaguchi

Yamaguchi Prefecture forms the western end of Honshu, surrounded by sea on three sides: the Seto Inland Sea to the south, the Sea of Japan to the north and the narrow Kanmon Straits to the west, beyond which lies Kitakyushu. Its population is spread over a string of medium-sized cities rather than concentrated in one centre; Shimonoseki is the largest, while the capital, Yamaguchi, is a smaller inland city.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Ōuchi clan made Yamaguchi a cultural capital known as the "Kyoto of the West", and Francis Xavier preached there. In the Edo period the Mōri ruled the Chōshū domain from Hagi. Chōshū samurai, trained in schools such as Yoshida Shōin's Shōka Sonjuku, led the movement that overthrew the shogunate, and the prefecture has since produced more prime ministers than any other.

The landscape is varied: the Akiyoshidai plateau, Japan's largest karst area, with the great cave of Akiyoshi-dō; the rugged Sea of Japan coast of Ōmijima and Tsunoshima; and the calm islands of the Inland Sea. Shimonoseki is Japan's fugu capital, and the prefecture's sake breweries have gained a national reputation.

The prefecture takes its name from the city of Yamaguchi, "mouth of the mountains", which describes its position at the entrance to the valleys of the Chūgoku Mountains. The Mōri moved their seat there from Hagi in 1863, which made Yamaguchi the capital when the prefecture was formed.

The prefecture covers the two provinces of Suō in the east and Nagato in the west, which together formed the Chōshū (Hagi) domain of the Mōri and its branch domains of Chōfu, Tokuyama and Kiyosue, as well as the Iwakuni domain of the Kikkawa. Yamaguchi Prefecture was created in 1871 by merging these domains, and its borders have changed little since.

The western end of the Chūgoku Mountains runs through the prefecture as a series of low mountains and plateaux, reaching 1,337 metres at Jakuchi-san on the Shimane border. Rivers such as the Nishiki, Saba and Koto flow to the Inland Sea, where industrial cities occupy the coastal plains, while short rivers drain north to the Sea of Japan.

The Akiyoshidai plateau in the centre is an uplifted coral-reef limestone with dolines, pinnacles and more than 400 caves. The northern coast is a landscape of sea cliffs and islands such as Ōmijima; in the south, Suō-Ōshima and other islands belong to the Setonaikai National Park. The Kanmon Straits, less than a kilometre wide at their narrowest, separate Honshu from Kyushu.

The Inland Sea side is mild with a relatively dry winter; the Sea of Japan side is cloudier and wetter in winter, and snow falls in the inland mountains. Being at the western end of Honshu, Yamaguchi is somewhat warmer than the rest of the Chūgoku region, and typhoons can affect the coast in late summer.

The Kanmon Straits have long been a strategic passage. In 1185 the Taira were destroyed by the Minamoto at the naval battle of Dan-no-ura, ending the Genpei War. From the fourteenth century the Ōuchi ruled Suō and Nagato from Yamaguchi, trading with Ming China and Korea and sheltering refugees from Kyoto's wars; in 1551 Francis Xavier received permission to preach there.

After Sekigahara the Mōri were confined to Suō and Nagato and built Hagi Castle in 1604. In the 1860s Chōshū became the centre of anti-shogunate activity: it bombarded foreign ships in the straits in 1863, was attacked by Western fleets in 1864, fought off a shogunal expedition in 1866 and allied with Satsuma to bring about the Meiji Restoration. Industrialisation followed around Ube, Tokuyama and Shimonoseki. In 2015 five sites in Hagi were inscribed as part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution.

The legacy of Chōshū is everywhere: shrines, schools and statues honour the men of the Restoration, and the prefecture remains politically influential. The older culture of the Ōuchi survives in Yamaguchi's temples and in crafts such as Ōuchi lacquer, while Hagi-yaki, a soft, glazed pottery prized for the tea ceremony, is one of Japan's most celebrated wares.

Festivals range from Shimonoseki's Senteisai, commemorating the child emperor Antoku who drowned at Dan-no-ura, to the naked festival of Hōfu Tenmangū and the heron dance of Yamaguchi's Gion festival.

Shimonoseki handles most of Japan's pufferfish trade and calls it fuku, a homophone of "good fortune". Other specialities include bottled sea urchin, kawara soba cooked on roof tiles and the layered Iwakuni-zushi. Natsumikan citrus, planted in Hagi's former samurai gardens in the Meiji era, is the prefectural flower.

Yamaguchi's Inland Sea coast is lined with heavy industry: the petrochemical complex of Shūnan, cement and chemicals in Ube, a car plant in Hōfu, shipbuilding in Shimonoseki and textile and paper industries in Iwakuni. Fisheries are important on both coasts, and the prefecture's sake breweries have become widely known. Tourism draws on Hagi, Akiyoshidai and Shimonoseki.