He was born in Yasuo-cho, Okazaki,
Mikawa Province (present-day
Okazaki City,
Aichi Prefecture ), on 15 September 1863. He was the eldest son of Shiga Jūshoku, a Confucian scholar of the domain school of the
Okazaki Domain. After Jūshoku died in 1868, he was raised in the Matsushita family, the home of his mother, Yoshiko. His maternal grandfather, Matsushita Kyūdai, was poor but came from a well-respected lineage of Confucian scholars that influence Shiga into adulthood. In later years, he met Michimasa Miyazaki, Kumataro Kikuchi, and Saburo Kawato, who all became members of ''''. While in school, he traveled around the mountains and fields of Hokkaido and various parts of Aomori Prefecture. He developed an interest in politics. In 1884, he graduated from Sapporo Agricultural College, was in charge of botanical studies at Nagano Prefectural Junior High School, worked as a teacher at Nagano Prefectural Junior High School, and also taught geography as a lecturer at Nagano Prefectural Normal School. However, he resigned the following year due to trouble with the prefectural governor, Seiichiro Kinashi, at a bar, and went to Tokyo to work for Maruzen. At the end of the same year, he boarded the naval academy's training ship
HMS Malacca (1853) to explore the
situation of the British occupation of Geomundo, and inspected the Tsushima area, which was tense over the territorial dispute. In 1886, he took advantage of the HMS Malacca again and toured the islands of the South Pacific (Caroline Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, and the Hawaiian Islands) for 10 months; he published the "Current State of Affairs in the South Seas (南洋時事, Nanyo Jiji)" in the following year, reporting on the situation of the colonization competition of the great powers and warning the world, which later led to the
Nanshin-ron. Because of this book, he was recommended as an honorary member for life of the Tokyo Geographic Society. After that, he taught geography at the Tokyo English School run by
Shigetake Sugiura, and in April 1888, he organized Seikyosha with other members and launched the bulletin "Nihonjin" as an editor. He advocated nationalism, but it was not an exclusive idea that praised all of Japan and rejected all foreign countries, but according to Shigetaka, it was as follows. "We must protect the systems of religion, morality, art, politics, and production by
preserving the national essence, but I am not saying that Japan should continue to preserve the old ways. However, Western civilization should be chewed and digested before being adopted.." In 1889, he put up an argument to criticize the inadequacies of
Ōkuma Shigenobu's bill to revise the treaties with the west, and formed the opposition movement 'Nippon Club'. In 1893,
Yone Noguchi, the father of Isamu Noguchi and later a poet, lodged at his house. During the
First Sino-Japanese War that began in August 1894, he advocated "independent diplomacy" as a representative of the more than 120 newspaper and magazine alliances. This year he married Tetsuchiyo Matsuno. He published a long-selling book, "
The Japanese Landscape". In 1895, he became a lecturer at Tokyo Senmon Gakko and taught geography. He also taught for a long time at Atomi Girls' School, the school where his wife Tetsuchiyo graduated, and often attended the Atomi Alumni Association with his wife. In 1896, he became an honorary secretary of the political Party
Shimpotō. In 1897, he assumed the post of Director General of the Forestry Bureau of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, but was dismissed on disciplinary action after criticizing the cabinet. In 1898, he became an Imperial Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the first Okuma Cabinet and worked hard to make
Minamitorishima a Japanese territory, but in the fall he resigned due to the resignation of the Cabinet en masse and became a member of the
Kensei Hontō. He gradually withdrew from the Seikyosha. In 1899, he was dispatched by the
Kensei Hontō to inspect Xiamen and the Yangtze River basin. In 1900, he moved to
Rikken Seiyūkai and edited the party bulletin. In 1902 (Meiji 35 ), he ran as a member of the House of Representatives as a member of the Seiyukai, but in 1904 he lost the election and left politics to concentrate on geography. He watched the Russo-Japanese War in
Incheon, Seoul, and Lushun for about half a year. He worked mainly as a diplomatic adviser and interpreter at the headquarters of the Third Army, and was treated by the military commander,
Nogi Maresuke. He was a lecturer at
Matsumoto Kimpei's Tokyo Political School. In 1905, he visited Sakhalin with the qualification of chief of theTokyo Geographic Society and secretary of the Japan Fisheries Association. He also toured the Okinawa Islands on the coastal defense ship Matsue. The following year, he attended the Russo-Japanese Committee held in Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky regarding the possession of Southern Karafuto, and spent about half a year surveying, logging, and photographing the island. In 1907 and 1908, he went to Korea. In 1910, he boarded the
Japanese cruiser Ikoma and traveled around the world. In 1911, he became a professor at Waseda University, where he remained until his death. He was recommended as an honorary member of the
Japanese Alpine Club. In 1912, he traveled to California and the Hawaiian Islands. In 1914, he traveled to Hawaii, Canada, Washington DC, Cuba, and Mexico. In 1915, he traveled to Manchuria and Mongolia. In 1917, he became an honorary member of the British
Royal Geographical Society. In 1922, he toured Southern Africa and South America. In 1923, he toured India, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, paying attention to the oil situation in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli problem. In March 1927, he died after undergoing surgery for left knee arthritis. He was 63 years old. He held his funeral at Aoyama Funeral Hall. His posthumous name was Shokoin Hagikawa Nichijou Koji. ==Death and legacy==