noun, noun, used as a suffix
Historical term for the territory and administrative unit of a daimyo during the Edo period and early Meiji era. Often used as a suffix after the domain name, e.g. 薩摩藩.
江戸時代、日本には約三百の藩があった。
In the Edo period, there were about three hundred domains in Japan.
彼の先祖は薩摩藩の武
His ancestors were samurai of the Satsuma domain.
大名 is the feudal lord who ruled a 藩.
県 is the modern prefecture system that replaced 藩 after the Meiji Restoration.
The kanji 藩 originally meant 'fence' or 'screen' and was used in Chinese to refer to a feudal state or protectorate. In Japan, it was adopted to denote the domains of daimyo under the Tokugawa shogunate.