Japanese ryō
Japanese ryō: a historical unit of account.
- Dates in use
- Introduction and ending not established
- Ancestry branch
- See family connections
Where this money came from
1 ancestor · 6 descendants. Follow a name to its history. Select a dated connection for its evidence.
This currency also received later contributions, distinguished below from its origins.
The story
Gold accounting used ryo, bu and shu. [1]
An eighteenth-century official rating equated one ryo with 60 monme or 4, 000 mon. [2]
The seventeenth-century museum section gives one ryo as 50 monme or 4, 000 mon. [3]
Turning points
Account-unit observation
Later16th-century Koshu gold used ryo/bu/shu units that the Bank of Japan identifies as continuing into Edo gold reckoning. Regional-to-general continuity is explicit but the observed evidence is denomination and large-transaction use, less direct than a surviving dated account. Optional earlier anchor; retain17th-century firm observation independently. [4]
Account-unit observation
The 17th-century Japanese monetary system reckoned gold values in ryo, independently from silver monme and copper mon. [5]
Denomination extension
The BOJ Museum dates gold-unit-denominated Meiwa Nishu silver coins to 1772, distinguishing denomination from metal. [6]
Account-unit observation
Mitsui Kyoto moneychanger accounts switched fully from ryo to yen in March–April 1873, after earlier yen instruments had still been settled in ryo. This supplies an actual ledger transition supporting existing ryo→yen succession. [7]
Sources and evidence
- Bank of Japan Currency Museum · FAQs Japanese Currency C14 ↗
- Bank of Japan Currency Museum · FAQs Japanese Currency C25 ↗
- Bank of Japan Currency Museum · Historical Events and Currencies in Use Contents C26 ↗
- Bank of Japan Currency Museum · Historical Events and Currencies in Use Contents C1263 ↗
- Bank of Japan Currency Museum · Historical Events and Currencies in Use Contents C1262 ↗
- Bank of Japan Currency Museum · Historical Events and Currencies in Use Contents C355 ↗
- Noburu Kobayashi · Noburu Kobayashi, 近世・近代日本貨幣史の基礎的研究, BOJ Currency Museum 2017 C1417 ↗
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Full claims, evidence coverage, corrections and earlier interpretations are kept separately.
Cite this page
“Japanese ryō.” The Family Tree of Money. © Field Technologies, Inc. Reader edition 2026-10-13; research dataset v44. https://familytreeofmoney.org/currency/T-FTM000410.html