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Which Japanese domains provided many of the leaders of the Meiji Restoration?

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The emperor Meiji — Meiji Restoration After the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate, the Meiji emperor became the formal head of a new imperial government under whose reign Japan was transformed from an isolated feudal society into a modern, industrialized global power.

The Meiji government was primarily dominated by leaders from the domains of Satsuma and Chōshū. These two domains formed a critical alliance that utilized their familiarity with Western military technology to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate and establish a new government under the emperor.12

While Satsuma and Chōshū provided the core leadership—including prominent figures such as Saigō Takamori and Ōkubo Toshimichi of Satsuma, and Kido Takayoshi and Itō Hirobumi of Chōshū—the Meiji leaders also enlisted the support of other domains to broaden the base of their policies. These additional domains included:1

Tosa13
Saga13
Echizen1

These leaders, many of whom were young samurai of modest rank, were united by the conviction that Japan required a unified national government to achieve equality with Western powers.1