The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 5) - The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1900 (1989. e2008)

The nineteenth century saw Japan transformed from a society that was divided territorially, politically, socially, and internationally. Japan's borders were still unclear, for its sovereignty over Okinawa, the Kurils, and Hokkaido was not established. Politically, Japan was still structured in the territorial divisions that had been worked out in the early seventeenth century. The Tokugawa shogun held dominion over lands that produced about one-quarter of the national agricultural yield of rice, which was the sole measure of productivity, but although he retained about half of that for his own house as tenryo, the rest he allocated to his vassals. 

The balance of the country was divided among some 260 feudal lords, who in turn allocated part of their holdings to their retainers. The domains were substantially autonomous in internal administration; each had its own army, its own administrative system, and its own capital city, which had grown, in the larger domains, around the daimyo's castle. The lords and their domains were not taxed by the shogun, who, as primus inter pares, was restricted to
the revenue of his own holdings.