In 1869, under the new Meiji government, a Japanese peerage was created by an Imperial decree merging the former court nobility (kuge) and former feudal lords (daimyos) into a single new aristocratic class called the kazoku.

[1] Although this grouping idea was taken from the European peerage, the Japanese titles were taken from Chinese and based on the ancient feudal system in China.

Inversely, the minimum age for hereditary (dukes and marquesses) and mutually elected (counts, viscounts and barons) noble peers was increased to 30, slightly reducing their number.

[2] After the addition of seats for the imperial colonies of Chōsen (Korea) and Taiwan (Formosa) during the last stages of WWII, it stood at 418 at the beginning of the 89th Imperial Diet in November 1945,[3] briefly before General Douglas MacArthur's "purge" barred many members from public office.

[citation needed] After revisions to the Ordinance, notably in 1925, the House of Peers comprised: After World War II, the United States occupied Japan and undertook widespread structural changes with the goal of democratization and demilitarization, which included extensive land reform that stripped the nobility of their land and therefore a major source of income.