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is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 km² (1,466 sq mi). Saitama Prefecture borders Tochigi Prefecture and Gunma Prefecture to the north, Nagano Prefecture to the west, Yamanashi Prefecture to the southwest, Tokyo to the south, Chiba Prefecture to the southeast, and Ibaraki Prefecture to the northeast. Saitama is the capital and largest city of Saitama Prefecture, with other major cities including Kawaguchi, Kawagoe, and Tokorozawa. Saitama Prefecture is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, the most populous metropolitan area in the world, and many of its cities are described as bedroom communities and suburbs of Tokyo with many residents commuting into the city each day. [edit] History
According to Sendai Kuji Hongi (Kujiki), Chichibu was one of 137 provinces during the reign of Emperor Sujin. Chichibu Province was in western Saitama. The area that would become Saitama Prefecture in the 19th century is part of Musashi Province in the Ritsuryō (or ryō-system; ritsu stands for the penal code, ryō for the administrative code) Imperial administration of antiquity (see Provinces of Japan and the 5 (go) capital area provinces (ki)/7 (shichi) circuits (dō) system) which was nominally revived in the Meiji restoration but has lost much of its administrative function since the Middle Ages. Saitama District (Saitama-gun) was one of Musashi's 21 ritsuryō districts. In the fifth year of the Keiun era (708), deposits of copper were reported to have been found in the Chichibu District of what is now Saitama Prefecture. The Saitama area was historically known as a fertile agricultural region which produced much of the food for the Kantō region. During the Edo period, many fudai daimyōs ruled small domains within the Saitama area. At the end of the early modern Edo period, large parts of present-day Saitama were part of the shogunate domain (baku-ryō) or the often subsumed holdings of smaller vassals (hatamoto-ryō) around Edo, major areas were part of the fiefdoms (-han) Kawagoe (ruled by Matsui/Matsudaira, fudai), Oshi (Okudaira-Matsudaira, fudai) and Iwatsuki (Ōoka, fudai); few territories were held by domains seated in other provinces.
Kawagoe Prefecture was consolidated with other territories into (入間県, Iruma-ken; government seat unchanged from Kawagoe domain/prefecture: Kawagoe Town, Iruma District) which consisted of 13 districts of Musashi in the Western part of present-day Saitama. In 1873, Iruma was merged with Gunma (capital: Takasaki Town, Gunma District) to become Kumagaya (capital: Kumagaya Town, Ōsato District). But Kumagaya was split up again in 1876: The area of Kōzuke province came back as a second Gunma prefecture, and the territories in Musashi province/former Iruma prefecture were merged into Saitama. Except for the transfer of a few municipalities to Tokyo in the 1890s/1900s (see below) and several smaller, 20th century changes through cross-prefectural municipal mergers or transfers of neighbourhoods, Saitama had reached its present extent.
After World War II, as Tokyo expanded rapidly and modern transportation allowed longer commutes, the lack of available land in Tokyo led to the rapid development of Saitama Prefecture, where the population has nearly tripled since 1960. Most of the cities in the prefecture are closely connected to downtown Tokyo by metropolitan rail, and operate largely as residential and commercial suburbs of Tokyo. In 2001, Urawa City was merged with Ōmiya City and Yono City to create Saitama City (Saitama-shi; but unlike the district or the prefecture written with Kana) as the new enlarged capital. It became the prefecture's first (and so far only) designated major city in 2003. [edit] Research Tips
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