Kōka District, Shiga

Kōka (甲賀郡, Kōka-gun) was a district located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan.

From circa 1460 until 1574, during the Sengoku period, the district was effectively independent of centralized state control and operated as the Kōka-gun Chūsō, a military confederacy of jizamurai and other warrior families that became known as ninja.

During this period it formed an alliance with its southern neighbor, the Iga Sokoku Ikki, a similar independent confederacy of ninja families.

Both alliance and the ikki ended when Oda Nobunaga defeated Kōka and compelled it to be a vassal.

This Shiga Prefecture location article is a stub.