- Source: Uto Domain
Uto Domain (宇土藩, Uto-han) was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It was regarded as a sub-domain of Kumamoto Domain. It was based at the Uto jin'ya in what is now the city of Uto, Kumamoto. It was ruled by a cadet branch of the tozama daimyō Hosokawa clan for all of its history.
History
The domain was headed by a cadet branch of the Hosokawa clan of Kumamoto. In 1624, the second daimyō of Kumamoto Domain, Hosokawa Mitsunao set aside estates in Uto District and Shimomashiki District in Higo Province with a kokudaka of 30,000 koku for his cousin, Hosokawa Yukitaka, and authorized him to establish a cadet branch of the Hosokawa clan. This was done partly as "insurance" to ensure the survival of the parent domain in the event that succession of the main lineage fail. The headquarters for this new domain was near the ruins of Uto Castle, but as a subsidiary domain, Hosokawa Yukitaka was not authorized to rebuild the castle, but instead constructed a jin'ya as his stronghold and administrative center. The domain survived for 11 generations until it was merged back into Kumamoto Domain in 1870 and then abolished with the Meiji restoration. #
List of daimyō
See also
Abolition of the han system
List of Han
References
External links
"Uto" at Edo 300 (in Japanese)
Uto City Digital Museum (in Japanese)