About: Relations between Gaya and ancient Japan

Yamato Japan and the Gaya Confederacy, which were located directly across the Korea Strait from one another, had very close diplomatic and commercial ties since prehistory until the conquest of Gaya by Silla in 562 AD. Until recently Japanese historians had believed that Gaya, once called Mimana in Japanese, was controlled by Japan for most of its existence as an overseas colonial possession. Though this theory has been largely refuted since the 1970s, it remains a sensitive and re-occurring issue in modern-day Korea–Japan relations.