Taihō Code facts for kids

History of Japan

Paleolithic 35000–10000 BCE Jōmon period 10000–300 BCE Yayoi period 300 BCE–250 CE Kofun period 250–538 Asuka period 538–710 Nara period 710–794 Heian period 794–1185 Kamakura period 1185–1333 Kemmu restoration 1333–1336 Muromachi period 1333–1573 Nanboku-chō period 1336–1392 Sengoku period Azuchi-Momoyama period 1568–1603 Nanban trade Edo period 1603–1868 Late Tokugawa shogunate Meiji period 1868–1912 Meiji Restoration Taishō period 1912–1926 Japan in WWI Shōwa period 1926–1989 Japanese expansionism Occupied Japan Post-Occupation Japan Heisei period 1989-present

The Taihō Code was a group of laws in Japan. It was the law during the 700s c.e., which was the Nara period in Japan. Here, "code" means "set of rules."

The Taihō Code had two kinds of laws. It had ritsu which were laws about crime and how to arrest people. It had ryō, which were laws about how to run the government. For example, the ryō said which areas were provinces and who would run them and what things the governors were and were not allowed to do.

The lawmakers who wrote the Taihō Code copied things from Chinese laws. This was the Tang Dynasty in China. But the Japanese lawmakers wrote the Taihō Code to give more government jobs to Japanese noblemen. This was different from the Tang Dynasty laws, which said anyone from any family could work for the government if they took and passed the right tests.

Modern scholars do not have a copy of the entire Taihō Code, but they think it is about the same as the later Yōrō Code.

If the Taihō Code and the Yōrō Code count as the same thing, then they lasted from 702 c.e. until the start of the Tokugawa period in 1232 c.e.

Images for kids

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  Map of provinces in 701–702