Sino-Japanese name for the polity ruled by the shaman-queen Himiko during the late Yayoi period, known chiefly from the Chinese Records of the Three Kingdoms (Wei zhi), which describes it as the paramount member of a loose confederation of roughly thirty Wa (Japanese) 'countries.' Himiko reportedly took the throne after a long civil war among the Wa polities and sent tribute missions to the Wei court beginning in 238 AD.
Continued after Himiko's death (c. 248) under a brief male successor and then her kinswoman Iyo; last recorded Chinese contact is a 266 AD mission, after which Yamatai vanishes from the record and its relationship to the later Yamato state is unresolved.
The standard English-language monograph synthesizing the archaeological and textual (Wei zhi) evidence for Yamatai and Himiko.
Broad scholarly framing of the Yayoi-period Wa polities including Yamatai.