701 · Early law
Taihō Code
Japan
Japan's first full code of criminal and administrative law (the ritsuryō system), which set up a central government on the Chinese pattern.
Why it matters
It shows how a country can adapt a foreign legal model to its own society. Much of it was changed in practice, but it remained the formal frame of the state for centuries.
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Went on to shape
No later text on this timeline is recorded as built on it.
Countries in the Legal Families Atlas
TheLawToKnow Tools’s timeline lists links of influence only where the borrowing is widely documented. Historians sometimes disagree about how much one text shaped another. It is an educational overview, not legal advice.
