"Ezo (蝦夷) (also spelled Yezo or Yeso) is the Japanese term historically used to refer to the lands to the north of the Japanese island of ...
Honshu. It included the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, which changed its name from "Ezo" to "Hokkaidō" in 1869, and sometimes included Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.
The same two kanji used to write the word "Ezo", which literally mean "shrimp barbarians" in Chinese, can also be read in the Japanese language as "Emishi", the name given to the indigenous people of these lands, the descendants of whom are most likely the Ainu people." - (en.wikipedia.org 18.12.2020)
