Welcome to the lives and culture of people who lived during Japan’s Early Modern period (late 1500s to mid 1800s). These centuries are also known as the Edo period because they coincide roughly with the ruling government of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had its headquarters, or bakufu, in Edo (modern-day Tokyo). During the period, land was divided into territories defined by taxable agricultural output, or koku ("bushels"). The Shogunate assigned these territories to the heads of leading military families. If a territory were valued at 10,000 koku or above, the family head was labeled a daimyō ("great lord"). Independently of the Shogunate, these lordly rulers and the men who served them governed their designated territories, called han ("domains") by modern scholars, in a balanced political arrangement known as the bakuhan taisei ("Shogunate-Domain System"). For over two hundred years under this arrangement, there was no warfare on the Japanese archipelago and no wars against countries beyond its borders.