Ezo
Historical term for the islands north of Japan and their people / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Ezo (disambiguation).
"Yesso" redirects here. For the footballer, see Diego Yesso.
Ezo (蝦夷) (also spelled Yezo or Yeso)[1] is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the people and the lands to the northeast of the Japanese island of Honshu.[2] This included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido,[3][4][5][6] which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 1869,[7] and sometimes included Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.[3][4] The word Ezo means "the land of the barbarians" in Japanese.[8]
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.[9]