Okinawa, Japan - Hoptale's Destination Guide

Though Satsuma maintained strong influence over the islands, the Ryūkyū Kingdom maintained a considerable degree of domestic political freedom for over two hundred years. In 1872 during Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government, through military incursions, officially annexed the kingdom and renamed it Ryukyu han which became Okinawa Prefecture of Japan in 1879. The Japanese government carried out linguistic and cultural assimilation throughout the Meiji era[http://leo.aichi-u.ac.jp/~kagamisemi/repo/oguri.html][http://kaken.nii.ac.jp/d/p/13372003/2003/6/en.ja.html]. In 1912, Okinawans obtained the right to vote to send representatives to the national Diet which had been established in 1890. (Okinawa Wikitravel)