Pure Land Buddhism also referred to as Amidism in English, is a broad branch of Mahāyāna

Mahayana

Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...

 Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 and currently one of the most popular traditions of Buddhism in East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

. Pure Land is a branch of Buddhism focused on Amitābha

Amitabha

Amitābha is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism...

 Buddha. The term is used to describe both the Pure Land soteriology

Soteriology

The branch of Christian theology that deals with salvation and redemption is called Soteriology. It is derived from the Greek sōtērion + English -logy....

 of Mahāyāna Buddhism, which may be better understood as Pure Land traditions, and the separate Pure Land sects that developed in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

; in other countries and times, it formed part of the basis of Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions.

Pure Land oriented practices and concepts are found within basic Mahāyāna Buddhist cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

, and form an important component of the Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Tibet.