Overview
Japan’s earliest written notices appear in the Han and Wei records of the “Wa” people; the country’s own oldest chronicles, the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720), were compiled in the Nara period.
A pattern recurs throughout its history: long phases of selective absorption from the continent — writing, Buddhism, institutions — alternating with periods of managed isolation and rapid opening.
The major eras
Prehistoric Jomon foragers gave way to the wet-rice society of the Yayoi, then to Kofun-era consolidation under the Yamato line. A Chinese-modeled classical state followed through the Asuka, Nara and Heian periods.
From 1185 to 1868, warriors ruled for nearly seven centuries — through the Kamakura and Muromachi shogunates, the Azuchi–Momoyama unification, and the Edo shogunate. The Meiji Restoration built a modern nation-state; after the catastrophe of the Pacific War, Japan re-emerged as a democratic, economic power. Throughout, the imperial line has continued as the formal thread of the state — era names (nengo) still mark the calendar today.