Mutsu province - Definition

Mutsu (陸奥国; -no kuni) is an old province of Japan, which today composes Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori prefectures and a city of Kazuno and a town of Kosaka in Akita prefecture.　Also known as Ōshū (奥州).

Mutsu, in northern Honshu, was one of the last provinces to be formed as land was taken from the indigenous Ainu, and became the largest as it expanded northward. The ancient capital was in modern Miyagi prefecture. During the Sengoku period various clans ruled different parts of the prefecture. The Uesugi clan had a castle town at Wakamatsu in the south, the Nambu clan at Morioka in the north, and Date Masamune, a close ally of the Tokugawa, established Sendai, which is now the largest town of the Tohoku region.