Tairō was a high-ranking official position in the bakuhan taisei government of 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...

. The tairō would preside over the governing Rōjū

Roju

The ', usually translated as Elder, was one of the highest-ranking government posts in Tokugawa Japan. The term refers either to individual Elders, or to the Council as a whole; under the first two shoguns, there were only two Rōjū...

 council in the event of an emergency. A tairō would be nominated from among a group of samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 families who supported Tokugawa Ieyasu

Tokugawa Ieyasu

 was the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan , which ruled from the Battle of Sekigahara  in 1600 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Ieyasu seized power in 1600, received appointment as shogun in 1603, abdicated from office in 1605, but...

. Generally, the office holder was the shogunate's chief policy maker, and provided Japan with a capable temporary leader in the absence of a shogun

Shogun

A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...

, or in the event that the shogun was incapacitated.

List of tairō

Name	Domain	From	To
Sakai Tadayo Sakai Tadayo was a Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period, and high ranking government advisor, holding the title of Rōjū, and later Tairō.The son of Sakai Shigetada, Tadayo was born in Nishio, Mikawa Province; his childhood name was Manchiyo. He became a trusted elder in Toyotomi Hideyoshi's government,...	Harima Harima Province or Banshu was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is the southwestern part of present-day Hyōgo Prefecture. Harima bordered on Tajima, Tamba, Settsu, Bizen, and Mimasaka Provinces. Its capital was Himeji....	March 12, 1636	March 19, 1636
Doi Toshikatsu Doi Toshikatsu was a top-ranking official in Japan's Tokugawa shogunate during its early decades, and one of the chief advisors to the second Tokugawa shogun, Hidetada....	Shimousa Shimousa Province was a province of Japan in the area modern Chiba Prefecture, and Ibaraki Prefecture. It lies to the north of the Bōsō Peninsula , whose name takes its first kanji from the name of Awa Province and its second from Kazusa and Shimōsa Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was or .Shimōsa is...	November 7, 1638	July 10, 1644
Sakai Tadakatsu Sakai Tadakatsu , also known as Sanuki-no-kami, was tairō, rōjū, master of Wakasa-Obama castle and daimyo of Obama Domain in Wakasa province in the mid-17th century...	Obama Obama Domain The Obama Domain was a Japanese feudal domain of the Edo period, based at Obama Castle in Wakasa Province ....	November 7, 1638	May 26, 1656
Sakai Tadakiyo Sakai Tadakiyo , also known as Uta-no-kami, was a daimyō in Kōzuke Province, and a high-ranking government advisor and official in the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan....	Harima	March 29, 1666	December 9, 1680
Ii Naozumi	Ōmi Omi Province is an old province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō circuit. It is nicknamed as .Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake, is located at the center of the province...	November 19, 1668	January 3, 1676
Hotta Masatoshi Hotta Masatoshi was a daimyō in Shimousa Province, and top government advisor and official in the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He served as rōjū to Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna from 1679–80, and as Tairō under Tokugawa Tsunayoshi from the 12th day of the 11th lunar month of 1681 until his death on 7 October...	Shimousa	November 12, 1681	August 28, 1684
Ii Naooki	Ōmi	June 13, 1696	March 2, 1700
Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu was a Japanese samurai of the Edo period He was an official in the Tokugawa shogunate and he was a favorite of the fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi....	Yamato Yamato Province was a province of Japan, located in Kinai, corresponding to present-day Nara Prefecture in Honshū. It was also called . At first, the name was written with one different character , and for about ten years after 737, this was revised to use more desirable characters . The final revision was made in...	January 11, 1706	June 3, 1709
Ii Naooki	Ōmi	February 13, 1711	February 23, 1714
Ii Naoyuki	Ōmi	November 28, 1784	September 1, 1787
Ii Naoaki	Ōmi	December 28, 1835	May 13, 1841
Ii Naosuke Ii Naosuke was daimyo of Hikone and also Tairō of Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan, a position he held from April 23, 1858 until his death on March 24, 1860. He is most famous for signing the Harris Treaty with the United States, granting access to ports for trade to American merchants and seamen and...	Ōmi	April 23, 1858	March 24, 1860
Sakai Tadashige	Harima	February 1, 1865	November 12, 1865