Empress Go-Sakuramachi (Japanese: 後桜町天皇, Hepburn: Go-Sakuramachi-tennō; 23 September 1740 – 24 December 1813), personal name Toshiko, was the 117th monarch of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. She was named after her father Emperor Sakuramachi, with the word go (後) before her name translating in this context as "later" or "second one", also referred to as "Sakuramachi II". Her reign during the Edo period spanned the years from 1762 through to her abdication in 1771. As of 2026, she remains the most recent Japanese empress regnant.
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Birth and pre-reign
Empress Go-Sakuramachi was born Princess Toshiko (智子) to Emperor Sakuramachi and Nijō Ieko in 1740. She was the middle of three children, Princess Noriko, older, who died age 10 and Prince Toohito, younger, later Emperor Momozono. Her father died when she was young, and so the Tokugawa shogunate granted her mother some land, and gave the princess herself 300 koku of land as there was no intention for her to enter a nunnery.
Her brother was sickly and had only one child, a young boy. It was unusual for the emperor to come to the throne without the backing of a Daijō Tennō, the retired emperor, and so Momozono named his sister as his heir in his will. The emperor's death was hidden for a day and due to the urgency of the situation, since she was the last lineal descendent of Emperor Nakamikado, the court did not alert the shōgunate in Edo beforehand about their decision.