The Meiji Restoration begins in Japan

In 1868, power shifted from the Tokugawa shogunate to the emperor. Japan then modernized its government, army and industry within a few decades.

Context

The shogunate was weakened by the arrival of Commodore Perry's ships in 1853 and by unequal treaties signed in the 1850s. Samurai from the Satsuma and Choshu domains formed an alliance in 1866 against the bakufu. In November 1867 the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, offered to return power to the emperor.

In January 1868 Satsuma and Choshu forces seized the imperial palace in Kyoto and announced the restoration of imperial rule. Fighting in the Boshin War followed, and Edo Castle surrendered without a battle. Edo was renamed Tokyo, and the last bakufu supporters surrendered at Hakodate in 1869.

The young Emperor Meiji gave his reign name, meaning 'enlightened rule', to the era from 1868 to 1912. Japan's new leaders overhauled government, the military and the economy within a few decades.

The restoration was less a single event than a political transition. Domain lords gave their land registers to the emperor in 1869, and the domains were abolished in 1871 and replaced by prefectures. Many of the leaders who toppled the shogunate were from lower-ranking samurai families. The new government also dropped the samurai class's special privileges, which led to revolts including the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.