Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan (, or ), also referred to as the Japanese Empire, Imperial Japan, or simply Japan, was the Japanese nation-state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the reformed Constitution of Japan in 1947. From 29 August 1910 until 2 September 1945, it administered the (the Japanese archipelago and post-1943 Karafuto) and the (Korea, Taiwan, Kwantung Leased Territory, and pre-1943 Karafuto). The South Seas Mandate was a mandate of the League of Nations under Japanese administration. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis, the formalized Japanese Instrument of Surrender was issued in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the victorious Allies, and Japanese territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago as it is today.