The spatial recognitions of Toshimichi Okubo and the formation of regions in modern Japan

This paper explores the spatial career of Toshimichi Okubo as the most powerful statesman in modern Japan and investigates the relationship between his spatial recognition based on his spatial experiences and his spatial practices in planning Japan's national land development policy. His spatial experiences increased upon his promotion within the Satsuma clan after the 1860s. Although he left traces of his visits overseas, it was Central and Western Japan that he traveled to very often. His travels introduced him to places that were very different from where he later put spatial ideas into practice in Northeast Japan. Okubo also visited Britain after joining the Iwakura Embassy in 1872, and he acquired many ideas there regarding industrialization and infrastructure. His experiences in Britain were later applied to plans for the regional development project in the Tohoku Region in Northeast Japan. Tohoku was an unfamiliar place to Okubo, but it was similar to the countryside in Britain, especially in Scotland. Okubo planned and made suggestions regarding large infrastructure development projects and the development of natural resources in Northeast Japan in 1878. This was the major focus of his spatial practices. In this way, the spatial experiences of a man who lived at a historical turning point resulted in spatial practices adapted from spatial recognition. Since the intervention of an agent of structuralization can have a great influence on the formation and changes of regions, we need to study the spatial recognition and practices of this influential man in order to investigate such core facts of modern historical geography.