← 1878 1877 1876 1879 in Japan → 1880 1881 1882
Decades:	1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s
See also:	Other events of 1879 History of Japan  • Timeline  • Years

Events in the year 1879 in Japan. It corresponds to Meiji 12 in the Japanese calendar.

Incumbents

• Monarch: Emperor Meiji^[1]

Governors

• Aichi Prefecture: Taihe Yasujo
• Akita Prefecture: Ishida Eikichi
• Aomori Prefecture: J. Hishida then Hidenori Yamada
• Ehime Prefecture: Baron Takatoshi Iwamura
• Fukushima Prefecture: Taihe Yasujo
• Gifu Prefecture: Toshi Kozaki
• Gunma Prefecture: Katori Yoshihiko
• Hiroshima Prefecture: Fujii Tsutomu
• Ibaraki Prefecture: Baron Tatsutaro Nomura then Hitomi Katsutaro
• Iwate Prefecture: Korekiyo Shima
• Kumamoto Prefecture: Takaaki Tomioka
• Kochi Prefecture: Viscount Kunitake Watanabe then Baron Kokuritsu Kitagaki
• Kyoto Prefecture: Baron Masanao Makimura
• Mie Prefecture: Sadamedaka Iwamura
• Miyagi Prefecture: Baron Matsudaira Masanao
• Nagano Prefecture: Narasaki Hiroshi
• Niigata Prefecture: Nagayama Sheng Hui
• Oita Prefecture: Shinichi Kagawa then Ryokichi Nishimura
• Osaka Prefecture: Viscount Norobu Watanabe
• Saitama Prefecture: Tasuke Shirane
• Shimane Prefecture: Jiro Sakai
• Tochigi Prefecture: Miki Nabeshima
• Tokyo: Masataka Kusumoto then Matsuda Michiyuki
• Yamagata Prefecture: Viscount Mishima Michitsune

Births

• January 18 – Tane Ikai, super-centenarian (d. 1995)
• August 24 – Rentarō Taki, pianist (d. 1903)
• August 31 – Taishō, 123rd Emperor of Japan (d. 1926)^[2]
• October 1 – Hasegawa Shigure, playwright (d. 1941)
• December 3 – Kafū Nagai, author, playwright, essayist, and diarist (d. 1959)