Bizen Province
Bizen Province was a province of Japan in the area that is eastern Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of western Japan. Bizen bordered Bitchū, Mimasaka, and Harima Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was Bishū. In terms of the Gokishichidō system, Bizen was one of the provinces of the San'yō circuit. Under the Engishiki classification system, Bizen was ranked as one of the 35 "superior countries" in terms of importance, and one of the "near countries" in terms of distance from the capital. The provincial capital was located in what is now the city of Okayama.
File:The Famous Scenes of the Sixty States 47 Bizen.jpg|thumb|right|Hiroshige ukiyo-e "Bizen" in "The Famous Scenes of the Sixty States"
History
After its conquest, the ancient Kingdom of Kibi became Kibi Province. It was divided into Bizen, Bitchū, and Bingo Provinces in the Ritsuryō administrative reforms in the late 7th century, with "Bizen" taking the first kanji of its name from "Kibi" and the second from its geographic position closest to the capital. Bizen Province at this time included the territory of what would later become Mimasaka Province, Tsurashima, Shōdoshima, and the northern part of the Naoshima Islands. In 713, the six northern counties of Eita, Katsuta, Tomata, Kume and Mashima were separated from Bizen to form Mimasaka Province.Bizen, with much flat land and many rivers of reasonable size for flood control and water transportation, has been suitable for agriculture since ancient times. It has been an iron production area since the Kofun period, and also had salt fields along its coast with the Seto Inland Sea, which also provided for convenience of marine transportation to the Kinai region Shikoku and Kyushu. The province was economically prosperous, and although its area as not large, it was ranked as a "superior country" under the Ritsuryō classification system.
The location of the Bizen kokufu is uncertain. Per the Wamyō Ruijushō it was located in Mino District. However, ruins discovered in Joto District in what his now the Kokufuichi neighborhood of Naka-ku, Okayama