Japan Castle Atlas
2502 castles
Search castles with a published basic page
In-depth article
Nemuro, Hokkaido
根室半島チャシ跡群
Number one on Japan's list of 100 great castles has no keep and no stone walls: just ditches and earth mounds dug by the Ainu on headlands above the sea.
In-depth article
Hakodate, Hokkaido
五稜郭
From above it is a giant star ringed by a moat: a fort the shogunate built on the European model, designed for the age of cannon.
In-depth article
Matsumae, Hokkaido
松前城
Built on the shogunate's orders to face down foreign ships, this was the last and northernmost castle built in the traditional Japanese style, with seven gun batteries lined up toward the sea.
In-depth article
Hirosaki, Aomori
弘前城
An original Edo-period keep is moving on rails right now: shifted aside 11 years ago so its stone base could be rebuilt, it is on its way back in 2026.
In-depth article
Hachinohe, Aomori
根城
A castle of earth and timber with no keep or stone walls, whose late-16th-century main enclosure has been rebuilt, building by building, from the post holes found in excavation.
In-depth article
Morioka, Iwate
盛岡城
Almost no buildings survive, yet the stone walls alone tell 90 years of castle building, from rough natural stones laid around 1600 to neatly squared blocks dated 1686, all within one castle.
In-depth article
Tagajō, Miyagi
多賀城
In a small hall beside the south gate stands a stone that still announces, in its own carved words, that this "castle" was founded in 724.
In-depth article
Miyagi
仙台城
Inside the 17-meter stone wall of the main enclosure, archaeologists found two older walls, each built and then buried after earthquakes brought it down.
In-depth article
Akita, Akita
久保田城
It was the seat of a domain worth over 200,000 koku of rice, yet it had almost no stone walls and never had a keep.
In-depth article
Yamagata, Yamagata
山形城
When a film needed the gate of Edo Castle, it was Yamagata Castle's Ninomaru East Otemon Gate that played the part.
In-depth article
Nihonmatsu, Fukushima
二本松城
A medieval mountain stronghold and an Edo-period castle of stone walls sit layered on the very same hill.
In-depth article
Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima
会津若松城
The only castle in Japan today where you can see a keep roofed in red tiles.
In-depth article
Shirakawa, Fukushima
白河小峰城
When the earthquake brought its stone walls down, every stone was put back exactly where it came from.
In-depth article
Chiyoda, Tokyo
江戸城
After its 58-meter keep burned in 1657, it was never rebuilt; only the huge stone base remains, in a garden of the Imperial Palace.
In-depth article
Hachiōji, Tokyo
八王子城
A mountain castle that fell, still unfinished, while its lord Hojo Ujiteru was away defending Odawara.
In-depth article
Mito, Ibaraki
水戸城
The castle of the Mito Tokugawa, one of the shogun's three senior branch families, defended not by stone walls but by deep moats and earthen ramparts.
In-depth article
Ashikaga, Tochigi
足利氏館
The ancestral home of the Ashikaga shoguns became a temple, and its moat and earthen banks have survived around the temple grounds for 800 years.
In-depth article
Takasaki, Gunma
箕輪城
In just over 30 years it passed from the Takeda to the Oda, the Hojo and the Tokugawa, until Ii Naomasa moved the castle to Takasaki and it was abandoned.
In-depth article
Ōta, Gunma
金山城
A Warring States mountain fort with no keep, yet on the summit you walk a stone-paved path between tall stone walls.
In-depth article
Sakura, Chiba
佐倉城
A castle of earth and water, with no stone walls, whose lords included nine of the shogun's senior councilors.
In-depth article
Odawara, Kanagawa
小田原城
To face Toyotomi Hideyoshi, its lords wrapped the whole town, not just the castle, in 9 km of moats and earthen walls.
In-depth article
Yorii, Saitama
鉢形城
A Hojo stronghold whose earthen walls were faced with river stones stacked like stairs.
In-depth article
Kawagoe, Saitama
川越城
There was never a keep, but the grand entrance and great hall of a daimyo's palace still stand from the Edo period.
In-depth article
Nagano, Nagano
松代城
Takeda Shingen built it as his front line in the Kawanakajima wars, and the Sanada family later lived here for 250 years.
Map: OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap
_202512a.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
