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The site was a particularly contested one during the [[Sengoku period]], with the [[Amako clan]] gaining control of the mines in [[1537]], losing them briefly to the [[Ouchi clan|Ôuchi]] in [[1539]] but regaining them just two years later, and then losing them again, this time to the [[Mori clan|Môri clan]], in [[1562]]. Using technology imported from China in the 1530s which increased extraction capabilities significantly, Iwami Ginzan was able to produce as much as 150 tons of silver each year in the 16th-17th centuries.<ref>Cesare Polenghi, ''Samurai of Ayutthaya: Yamada Nagamasa, Japanese warrior and merchant in early seventeenth-century Siam''. Bangkok: White Lotus Press (2009), 31.</ref>

The site was a particularly contested one during the [[Sengoku period]], with the [[Amako clan]] gaining control of the mines in [[1537]], losing them briefly to the [[Ouchi clan|Ôuchi]] in [[1539]] but regaining them just two years later, and then losing them again, this time to the [[Mori clan|Môri clan]], in [[1562]]. Using technology imported from China in the 1530s which increased extraction capabilities significantly, Iwami Ginzan was able to produce as much as 150 tons of silver each year in the 16th-17th centuries.<ref>Cesare Polenghi, ''Samurai of Ayutthaya: Yamada Nagamasa, Japanese warrior and merchant in early seventeenth-century Siam''. Bangkok: White Lotus Press (2009), 31.</ref>

The main nearby port through which silver was exported was known as Yunotsu.<ref>Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', University of Hawaii Press (2019), 207.</ref>

The main nearby port through which silver was exported was known as Yunotsu.<ref>Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', University of Hawaii Press (2019), 207.</ref> Nearly all of the 3,000 residents were involved in the silver trade.<ref>Maria Grazia Petrucci, “Caught Between Piracy and Trade: The Shimazu of Southern Japan…”, in Robert Antony and Angela Schottenhammer (eds.), ''Beyond the Silk Roads'', Harrassowitz Verlag (2017), p111.</ref>

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