Ainu people in the context of "Matsumae clan"

Japanese people (Japanese: 日本人, Hepburn: Nihonjin; IPA: [ɲihoɲdʑiꜜɴ]) are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago. Japanese people constitute 97.1% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 125 million people are of Japanese descent, making them one of the largest ethnic groups. Approximately 119.9 million Japanese people are residents of Japan, and there are approximately five million members of the Japanese diaspora, known as Nikkeijin (日系人).

In some contexts, the term "Japanese people" might be used to refer specifically to the Yamato people, who are primarily from the historically principal islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku and constitute by far the largest group. In other contexts, the term could include other groups native to the Japanese archipelago, including Ryukyuan people, who share connections with the Yamato but are often regarded as distinct, and Ainu people. In recent decades, there has also been an increase in the number of people with both Japanese and non-Japanese roots, including those who are half Japanese.

The Ainu languages (/ˈaɪnuː/ EYE-noo), sometimes known as Ainuic, were a small language family, often regarded as a language family isolate, historically spoken by the Ainu people of northern Japan and neighboring islands, up to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The primary varieties of Ainu are alternately considered a group of closely related languages or divergent dialects of a single language isolate. Toponymic evidence suggests Ainu was once spoken in northern Honshu and that much of the historically attested extent of the family was due to a relatively recent expansion northward. No genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated, despite numerous attempts.

Ainu (アイヌ イタㇰ, aynu itak), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu (Japanese: 北海道アイヌ語), is the native language of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate with no academic consensus regarding its origin. Until the 20th century, the Ainu languages – Hokkaido Ainu, Kuril Ainu, and Sakhalin Ainu – were spoken throughout Hokkaido, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and by small communities in the Kuril Islands, up to the southern tip of Kamchatka.

Following the colonization of Hokkaido, the number of Hokkaido Ainu speakers declined steadily throughout the 20th century. By 2008, Hokkaido Ainu was critically endangered, with only two elderly people reported to speak it as their first language. According to the linguist Hiroshi Nakagawa, by 2021 no one in Japan had Ainu as their first language.

Sapporo (札幌市, Sapporo-shi; [sap.po.ɾo, sap.po.ɾoꜜ.ɕi] ) is a designated city in Hokkaido, Japan. Located in the southwest of Hokkaido, it lies within the alluvial fan of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari River. Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido Prefecture and Ishikari Subprefecture. As of July 31, 2023, the city has a population of 1,959,750, making it the largest city in Hokkaido and the largest north of Tokyo. It is the fifth-most populous city in Japan and is Hokkaido's cultural, economic, and political center.

Originally a plain sparsely inhabited by the indigenous Ainu people, the area contained a few trade posts of the Matsumae domain during the Edo period. The city began as an administrative centre with the establishment of the Hokkaido Development Commission headquarters in 1869. Inspired by the ancient cities of Kyoto and Heijō-kyō, it adopted a grid plan and developed around Odori Park. After the Second World War, it replaced Otaru as Hokkaido's commercial and business hub, and its population surpassed one million by 1970.

Ezo, Yezo or Yeso (蝦夷; Japanese pronunciation: [eꜜ.(d)zo]) is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the people and the lands to the northeast of the Japanese island of Honshu. This included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 1869, and sometimes included Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The word Ezo means 'the shrimp barbarians' in Japanese.

In reference to the people of that region, the same two kanji used to write the word Ezo can also be read Emishi. The descendants of these people are most likely related to the Ainu people of today.

The Northern Fujiwara (奥州藤原氏 Ōshū Fujiwara-shi) were a Japanese noble family that ruled the Tōhoku region (the northeast of Honshū) of Japan during the 12th century, 1094-1104, as their own realm.

They succeeded the semi-independent Emishi families of the 11th century, who were gradually brought down by the Minamoto clan loyal to the Imperial Court in Kyoto. They ruled over an independent region that derived its wealth from gold mining, horse-trading and as middlemen in the trade in luxury items from continental Asian states and from the far northern Emishi and Ainu people. They were able to keep their independence vis-a-vis Kyoto by the strength of their warrior bands until they were ultimately conquered by the Kantō samurai clans led by Minamoto no Yoritomo, in the Battle of Ōshū in 1189.

The Bonin Islanders, also known as the Ogasawara Islanders or Ōbeikei tōmin (欧米系島民; lit. 'European–American Islanders') in Japanese, are a Euronesian ethnic group native to the Bonin Islands (or Ogasawara Islands). They are culturally and genetically distinct from other Japanese ethnic groups such as the Yamato, Ainu, and Ryukyuans as they are the modern-day descendants of a multitude of racial and ethnic groups including the Europeans, White Americans, Polynesians, and Kanaks who settled Hahajima and Chichijima in the 19th century.

The Ainu in Russia are an Indigenous people of Siberia located in Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Krai. The Russian Ainu people (Aine; Russian: айны, romanized: Ayny), also called Kurile (курилы, kurily), Kamchatka's Kurile (камчатские курилы, kamchatskiye kurily / камчадальские айны, kamchadalskiye ayny) or Eine (эйны, eyny), can be subdivided into six groups.

Although only around 100 people currently identify themselves as Ainu in Russia (according to the census of 2010), it is believed that at least 1,000 people are of significant Ainu ancestry. The low numbers identifying as Ainu are a result of the refusal by the government of the Russian Federation to recognise the Ainu as a "living" ethnic group. Most of the people who identify themselves as Ainu live in Kamchatka Krai, although the largest number of people who are of Ainu ancestry (without acknowledging it) are found in Sakhalin Oblast. Many local people are ethnically Ainu or have significant Ainu ancestry but identify as Russian or Nivkh and speak Russian as mother tongue, often not knowing of their Ainu ancestry.

Iturup (Russian: Итуру́п, romanized: iturúp; Japanese: 択捉島, romanized: etorofu-tō), also historically known by other names, is an island in the Kuril Archipelago separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. The town of Kurilsk, administrative center of Kurilsky District, is located roughly midway along its western shore. Iturup is the largest and northernmost of the southern Kurils, ownership of which is disputed between Japan and Russia. It is located between Kunashiri 19 km (12 mi) to its southwest and Urup 37 km (23 mi) to its northeast. The Vries Strait between Iturup and Urup forms the Miyabe Line dividing the predominant plants of the Kurils.

The native inhabitants of the islands since at least the 14th century were the Ainu. Various European explorers passed the area over the years but settlement varied between Russian and Japanese. The island was formally claimed as Japanese territory in 1855. Near the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Soviet Union occupied the southern Kurils and forcibly removed its Japanese residents. Japan continues to claim the islands and considers the northern edge of the island to be its own northernmost point.

The Jōmon (縄文) were a prehistoric hunter-gatherer culture that inhabited the Japanese archipelago between approximately 14,000 BC and 300 BC, following which they were largely assimilated by migrants from mainland East Asia of the following Yayoi culture. The Jōmon people lived as sedentary hunter-gatherers, practicing plant foraging, fishing and hunting and possibly limited farming, manufacturing stone tools and pottery, the distinctive markings on the latter giving the culture their name. Jōmon ancestry forms a significant minority of the ancestry of modern Japanese people, and a majority of the ancestry of the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido.