Chikugo Province

Its abbreviated form name was Chikushū (筑州) (a name which it shared with Chikuzen Province), although it was also called Chikuin (筑陰).

Ancient Tsukushi Province was a major power center in the Yayoi period, with contacts to the Asian mainland and may have been the site for the Kingdom of Yamatai mentioned in official Chinese dynastic Twenty-Four Histories for the 1st- and 2nd-century Eastern Han dynasty, the 3rd-century Records of the Three Kingdoms, and the 6th-century Book of Sui.

During the Kofun period, many burial mounds were constructed and the area was ruled by a powerful clan who held the title of "Tsukushi no kuni no miyatsuko".

In 663, the Yamato government, which was defeated by the combined Silla and Tang China forces at the Battle of Hakusonko, decided to establish Dazaifu as a regional military and civil administrative center, and after the Taika Reforms and the establishment of the Ritsuryō system in 701, Tsukushi Province was divided into Chikuzen and Chikugo Provinces.

Per the early Meiji period Kyudaka kyuryo Torishirabe-chō (旧高旧領取調帳), an official government assessment of the nation's resources, Chikugo Province had 789 villages with a total kokudaka of 536,851 koku.