Okinawa Prefecture Land Reorganization Project
A monument to the Project, located on a bluff above Gokoku Shrine in Naha's Onoyama Park. A statue of Okinawa Governor Narahara Shigeru, unveiled in 1908, previously stood on this spot, but was taken down and used for war materiel in the 1940s.
The Okinawa Prefecture Land Reorganization Project was a series of steps taken by the Meiji government to better align systems of land ownership and taxation in Okinawa with those in the rest of Japan.
Some of the key measures included the conversion of much of the communal land in Okinawa into private land, and the replacement of a complex system of taxes formerly paid by farmers to the Ryukyuan royal government in various forms (grain, etc.) with a single monetary land tax paid to the prefectural government. Systems for ownership of private land were introduced, along with a relatively straightforward system of land taxes, and a set price for land.
References
- Plaques on-site at Gokoku Shrine.