Ashikaga clan

Ashikaga clan 足利
Ashikaga Futatsubiki (足利二つ引き), the Ashikaga clan mon
Parent house	Minamoto clan (Seiwa Genji)
Titles	Various
Founder	Minamoto no Yoshiyasu (Ashikaga Yoshiyasu)
Final ruler	Ashikaga Yoshiaki
Ruled until	1573, Ashikaga shogunate deposed by Oda Nobunaga
Cadet branches	Hosokawa clan Imagawa clan Hatakeyama clan (restored line) Asano clan (after Asano Nagamasa) Kira clan Shiba clan Hachisuka clan others

The Ashikaga clan (Japanese: 足利氏, Hepburn: Ashikaga-shi) was a Japanese samurai clan and dynasty which established the Ashikaga shogunate and ruled Japan from roughly 1333^[1] to 1573.^[2] The Ashikaga were descended from a branch of the Minamoto clan, deriving originally from the town of Ashikaga in Shimotsuke Province (modern-day Tochigi Prefecture).

For about a century, the clan was divided in two rival branches, the Kantō Ashikaga, who ruled from Kamakura, and the Kyōto Ashikaga, rulers of Japan. The rivalry ended with the defeat of the first in 1439. The clan had many notable branch clans, including the Hosokawa,^{[citation needed]} Imagawa,^{[citation needed]} Hatakeyama^{[citation needed]} (after 1205), Kira ^{[citation needed]}, Shiba,^{[citation needed]} and Hachisuka clans.^{[citation needed]} After the head family of the Minamoto clan died out during the early Kamakura period, the Ashikaga came to style themselves as the head of the Minamoto, co-opting the prestige which came with that name.

Another Ashikaga clan, not related by blood, and derived instead from the Fujiwara clan, also existed.