was a state which was located in and around modern-day Fukuoka City

Fukuoka, Fukuoka

is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyushu in Japan.Voted number 14 in a 2010 poll of the World's Most Livable Cities, Fukuoka is praised for its green spaces in a metropolitan setting. It is the most populous city in Kyushu, followed by...

, on the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese island of Kyūshū

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

, from the 1st to early 3rd centuries. Much of what is known about it comes from ancient records of both China and Japan.

According to the Book of Later Han

Book of Later Han

The Book of the Later Han or the History of the Later Han is one of the official Chinese historical works which was compiled by Fan Ye in the 5th century, using a number of earlier histories and documents as sources...

, in 57 CE, Emperor Guangwu of Han

Emperor Guangwu of Han

Emperor Guangwu , born Liu Xiu, was an emperor of the Chinese Han Dynasty, restorer of the dynasty in AD 25 and thus founder of the Later Han or Eastern Han...

 granted Nakoku an imperial seal

Imperial Seal of China

The Imperial Seal of China, or the Heirloom Seal of the Realm is a Chinese jade seal carved out of the He Shi Bi, a historically famous piece of jade.-Creation:...

, patterned after the Chinese jade

Jade

Jade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...

 seals, but made of gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. In return, that same year, Na sent envoys to the Chinese capital, offering tribute

Tribute

A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...

 and formal New Year's greetings. This seal was discovered over 1500 years later, by an Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

 farmer on the island of Shikanoshima

Shikanoshima Island

Shikanoshima Island is an island in Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, Japan. The island is known as the spot where the golden block seal , a national treasure, was excavated...

, thus helping to verify the existence of Nakoku, which was otherwise known only from the ancient chronicles. Engraved upon it are the characters 「漢委奴国王」(kan no wa no na no koku-ō, King of the Japanese country of Na of Han

Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

).

A reference is found in the Gishiwajinden (魏志倭人伝, Records of Wei: Biography of the Wa people

Wa (Japan)

Japanese is the oldest recorded name of Japan. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese scribes regularly wrote Wa or Yamato "Japan" with the Chinese character 倭 until the 8th century, when the Japanese found fault with it, replacing it with 和 "harmony, peace, balance".- Historical references :The earliest...

), a portion of the Chinese Records of the Three Kingdoms, to the continued existence of Nakoku in the 3rd century, naming the officials and stating that it contains over 20,000 homes.

Some believe that Nakoku may correspond as well to "Na no agata" (儺県), a principality which preceded Fukuoka City.