11th lord of the Kagoshima domain, at the end of the Edo period. The eldest son of feudal lord SHIMAZU Narioki. He became the feudal lord of the Kagoshima domain in 1851 after competing with his half-brother Hisamitsu over the succession. After Commodore Perry arrived in 1853, Nariakira conducted the reformation of shogunate administration and kobu-gattai (reconciliation between the imperial court and the shogunate) together with important feudal lords such as TOKUGAWA Nariaki and MATSUDAIRA Yoshinaga, and senior councilor ABE Masahiro. Devoted to Western studies, Nariakira read, translated and researched Western books with KAWAMOTO Komin, TAKANO Choei, SUGITA Seikei and others, and built reverberatory furnaces and warships. He also built Western-style factories for gas lighting, glass manufacturing, and more in 1857. These facilities were named Shuseikan. Nariakira was familiar with the international　situation concerning Japan at the time, but died suddenly in 1858.