Empresses of Japan

The Land of the Rising Sun's eight female rulers are all but forgotten, but their lives and reigns were filled with drama

- Written by Elizabeth Norton

Japan's imperial history stretches back at least 1,500 years in an unbroken line of descent, with the throne passing seamlessly from father to son, uncle to nephew. What is frequently not appreciated, however, is that among the seemingly endless line of male emperors eight women have sat on Japan's Chrysanthemum Throne, ruling in their own right over the country’s estimated 14,000 islands.

Suiko, the first Tenno

To find the first, and possibly the greatest of these female emperors, we have to go back almost to the beginning of Japan's recorded history. Suiko, who was the daughter, wife and sister of emperors, was surprisingly selected for the throne in 592 when she was around 40 years old. She was, probably, a compromise candidate and one that her ministers hoped to control. Yet she proved to be a remarkable ruler, promoting Buddhism, which she was passionate about, as well as patronising the earliest chronicles written in Japanese. All Japanese monarchs are given posthumous names, by which they become known to history, with Suiko, which means 'Conjecture of the Past', reflecting her interest in history.

Politically, Suiko was a force to be reckoned with, receiving embassies from China, Korea and India during her reign and corresponding with China's emperor as an equal (addressing her correspondence to the “Emperor of the West” from the “Emperor of the East”). It's fitting that Suiko was the first Japanese sovereign to adopt the title of Tenno, which has been applied to all Japanese monarchs ever since, while her reign of over 35 years remains one of the longest of any Japanese monarch. Even a very grudging early chronicler who made his dislike of female rule plain noted that .

Powerful early empresses