History
Around the 6th century Kyushu consisted of four regions: Tsukushi-no-kuni 筑紫国, Hi-no-kuni 肥国, Kumaso-no-kuni (熊襲国?) and Toyo no kuni. Present day Oita was part of Toyo-no-kuni, which means "Abundant Land".
Toyo-no-kuni was later divided into two regions, upper and lower Toyo-no-kuni, called Bungo Province and Buzen Province.
After the Meiji Restoration, districts from Bungo and Buzen provinces were combined to form Ōita Prefecture. These provinces were divided among many local daimyo and thus a large castle town never formed in Ōita. From this time that whole area became known as "Toyo-no-kuni", which means "Land of Abundance".
The origins of the name Ōita are documented in a report from the early 8th century called the Chronicles of Bungo (豊後国風土記, bungonokuni-fudoki?) . According to the document, when Empress Keikō visited the Kyushu region, stopping first in Toyo-no-kuni, she exclaimed that 'This is a vast land, indeed. It shall be known as Okita-Kuni!' Okita-Kuni, meaning "Land of the Great Fields", later came to be written as "Ōita". Present day interpretations based on Ōita's topography state that Oita's name comes from "Okita", meaning "many fields", rather than "vast" or "great" field, because of Ōita's complex terrain.
In the Edo period (1603–1867) the town of Hita was the government seat for the entire domain of Kyushu, which was directly controlled by the national government or shogun at that time. The region became well known for the money-lending industry based out of Hita. Merchants in Hita's Mameda and Kuma districts worked with the national government to create this money-lending industry known as Hita-kin.
Read more about this topic: Ōita Prefecture
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