Sakoku (??, lit. locked country, or chained country?) was the
foreign relations policy of
Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on
penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the
Tokugawa shogunate under
Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633-1639 and remained in effect until 1853 with the arrival of
Commodore Matthew Perry and the opening of Japan. It was still illegal to leave Japan until the
Meiji Restoration (1868).
The term Sakoku originates from the work Sakoku-ron (????) written by Shitsuki Tadao in 1801. Shitsuki invented the word while translating the works of the 17th century German traveller Engelbert Kaempfer concerning Japan. The term most commonly used contemporaneously to refer to the policy was kaikin (??, Sea restriction?).
Japan was far from being completely isolated under the sakoku policy. Rather, it was a system in which strict regulations were applied to commerce and foreign relations by the shogunate, and by certain feudal domains (han).
The policy stated that the only European influence permitted was the Dutch factory (trading post) at Dejima in Nagasaki. Trade with China was also handled at Nagasaki. This trade was very important to Japan. In addition, trade with Korea was conducted via the Tsushima Domain (today part of Nagasaki Prefecture), with the Ainu via the Matsumae Domain in Hokkaido, and with the Ryukyu Kingdom via the Satsuma Domain (in present-day Kagoshima Prefecture). Apart from these direct commercial contacts in peripheral provinces, all of these countries sent regular tributary missions to the shogunate's seat in Edo. As the emissaries traveled across Japan, Japanese citizens caught a glimpse of foreign cultures.
