The Meiji government created the kazoku (crown-appointed nobility), merging former court nobles and daimyō into a new status group and weakening the territorial basis of elite power—an institutional complement to dismantling the han.
In hanseki hōkan (“return of lands and registers”), leading domains initiated a voluntary surrender of territorial and population-register authority to the emperor, providing a key legal-political bridge from han autonomy to centralized administration.
Over the following days, most remaining domain lords followed suit, formally accepting the new principle that land and people fell under imperial jurisdiction even as former domain administrations temporarily remained in place.
As the new system took hold, former domain lords were reappointed as non-hereditary governors of their former territories (now prefectures), a transitional measure that preserved order while shifting sovereignty to the central government.
The haihan chiken decree required remaining daimyō to relinquish domain authority and reorganized former han into new local jurisdictions under the central state, marking the decisive institutional break with feudal domain rule.
Immediately after haihan chiken, the government reorganized surviving domains into 3 fu (urban prefectures) and 302 ken (rural prefectures), creating an initial nationwide grid of centrally supervised administrations.
Later in 1871, the government merged many of the newly created prefectures, cutting the total to 72 as part of a drive to make administration more manageable and fiscally sustainable under centralized rule.
The Meiji state converted the Ryukyu Kingdom into the Ryukyu Domain (Ryūkyū-han), bringing it more directly into Japan’s administrative framework during the broader transformation from domains to prefectures.
Facing fiscal strain, the government transformed former daimyō stipends into government bonds, further severing the material foundation of domain-era authority and shifting elite income toward state finance mechanisms.
The Meiji government issued policy measures (often discussed under the “Disposition of the Ryukyus”) aimed at ending Ryukyuan diplomatic ties with China and preparing the domain’s conversion into a standard prefectural unit.
As part of continued consolidation and boundary adjustments, Aikawa Prefecture (on Sado Island) was incorporated into Niigata Prefecture, illustrating how the early, numerous prefectures were merged into larger units.
In 1876 the Meiji government commuted samurai stipends to government bonds, accelerating the dismantling of status-based fiscal privileges that had underpinned han governance and strengthening the centralized budgetary state.
Abolition of the Han System and Establishment of Prefectures (1871–1876)
