Meiji-mura in the context of "Taishō period"

In Japan, a district (郡, gun) is composed of one or more rural municipalities (towns or villages) within a prefecture. Districts have no governing function, and are only used for geographic or statistical purposes such as mailing addresses. Cities are not part of districts.

Historically, districts have at times functioned as an administrative unit. From 1878 to 1921 district governments were roughly equivalent to a county of the United States, ranking below prefecture and above town or village, on the same level as a city. District governments were entirely abolished by 1926.

The Treaty of Portsmouth is a treaty that formally ended the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War. It was signed on September 5, 1905, after negotiations from August 6 to 30, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, United States. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was instrumental in the negotiations and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, the first ever American recipient. The treaty recognized Japan's hegemony in Korea (which soon after became a protectorate of the Empire of Japan), awarded it Russia's lease on the Liaodong Peninsula (which became the Kwantung Leased Territory), control of the Russian-built South Manchuria Railway, and the southern half of the island of Sakhalin (Karafuto).