Kwantung Leased Territory

The Kwantung Leased Territory (traditional Chinese and Japanese: 關東州; ; pinyin: Guāndōng zhōu; Wade–Giles: Kuan1-tung1-chou1; rōmaji: Kantō-shū) was a leased territory of the Empire of Japan in the Liaodong Peninsula from 1905 to 1945. Japan first acquired Kwantung from the Qing Empire in perpetuity in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after victory in the First Sino-Japanese War.