East Asia swords

       As steel technology improved, single-edged weapons became popular throughout Asia. Derived from the Chinese Jian or dao, the Korean hwandudaedo are known from the early medieval Three Kingdoms. Production of the Japanese tachi, a precursor to the katana, is recorded from ca. 900 AD (see Japanese sword).[26] Japan was famous for the swords (nihonto) it forged in the early 13th century for the class of warrior-nobility known as the samurai. The types of swords used by the samurai included:nodachi/odachi (extra long field sword), tachi (long cavalry sword), katana (long sword), wakizashi (shorter companion sword for katana), tantō (short sword). Ancient pre-samurai swords included tsurugi (straight double edged blade) and Chokutō (straight single edged blade).[27] Anti-cavalry swords such as the extremely long Song Dynasty era zhanmadao (literally "horse chopping sword") and the Japanese Zanbatō also developed at the time.[28]

 

Katana of the 17th century, with its koshirae and shirasaya.

The Japanese katana reached the height of its development in the 15th and 16th centuries, when samurai increasingly found a need for a sword to use in closer quarters, leading to the creation of the modern katana.^[29]