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A female ruler of the Asuka period (r. 686–697), daughter of Emperor Tenji and consort of Emperor Tenmu. She reportedly accompanied her husband on campaign during the Jinshin War (672). After Tenmu's death, she assumed power and directed the completion of the Asuka Kiyomihara Code. In 694 she constructed Fujiwara-kyō (present-day Kashihara to Asuka, Nara)—Japan's first fully planned capital city—greatly advancing the development of a centralized state. After abdicating in favor of her grandson Emperor Monmu in 697, she retained real authority as Retired Empress. The poem attributed to her—"Spring has passed and summer has come, it seems; white robes are being dried on Mount Kagu of Heaven"—is second in the Hyakunin Isshu and is also included in the Man'yōshū. As the first emperor to be cremated, she was interred with Emperor Tenmu in the Hinokuma Ōuchi Mausoleum.

A female ruler of iron will and outstanding political instinct. She showed decisiveness in accompanying her husband into danger during the Jinshin War, and indomitable persistence in completing the ritsuryō state. Capable of deep feeling, she ultimately prioritized the logic of state governance, making her a rational decision-maker.

The construction of Fujiwara-kyō and the completion of the Asuka Kiyomihara Code laid the foundation for the development of Japan's ritsuryō state, which continued through Heijō-kyō and Heian-kyō. Remembered through a celebrated Man'yōshū poem, she is a historic ruler who demonstrated the significance of female imperial sovereignty.