A journey through stone walls | Japan Castle Atlas

Hakodate, Hokkaido

Goryōkaku

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.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 2CastleFlatland

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The keep of Matsumae Castle in summer (2024). It is a 1960 reinforced-concrete replacement for the wooden keep lost in 1949 and now houses the Matsumae Castle Museum.

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Matsumae, Hokkaido

Matsumae Castle

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.

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Hirosaki, Aomori

Hirosaki Castle

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.

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Morioka, Iwate

Morioka Castle

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.

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Miyagi

Sendai Castle

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.

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Yamagata, Yamagata

Yamagata Castle

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.

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Nihonmatsu, Fukushima

Nihonmatsu Castle

二本松城

A medieval mountain stronghold and an Edo-period castle of stone walls sit layered on the very same hill.

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Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima

Aizuwakamatsu Castle

会津若松城

The only castle in Japan today where you can see a keep roofed in red tiles.

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Shirakawa, Fukushima

Komine Castle

白河小峰城

When the earthquake brought its stone walls down, every stone was put back exactly where it came from.

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Chiyoda, Tokyo

Edo Castle

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.

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Hachiōji, Tokyo

Hachiōji Castle

八王子城

A mountain castle that fell, still unfinished, while its lord Hojo Ujiteru was away defending Odawara.

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Takasaki, Gunma

Minowa Castle

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.

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Ōta, Gunma

Kanayama Castle

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.

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Odawara, Kanagawa

Odawara Castle

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.

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The Edo-higan cherry in full bloom (March 2010), a Yorii Town Natural Monument 18 m tall and thought to be over 150 years old.

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Yorii, Saitama

Hachigata Castle

鉢形城

A Hojo stronghold whose earthen walls were faced with river stones stacked like stairs.

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Nagano, Nagano

Matsushiro Castle

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.

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Ueda, Nagano

Ueda Castle

上田城

This is the Sanada clan's castle that twice drove back Tokugawa armies, yet the turrets standing today were built after the Sanada had gone.

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Komoro, Nagano

Komoro Castle

小諸城

To reach this castle you walk down from the town, not up: Komoro is a "hole castle."

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Matsumoto, Nagano

Matsumoto Castle

松本城

A black keep built for war is joined to a red-railed moon-viewing turret built in a time of peace.

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Ina, Nagano

Takatō Castle

高遠城

A castle site with no keep and no tall stone walls, filled instead with 1,500 cherry trees of a single variety.

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The front of Takeda Shrine seen from Takeda-dori, May 2014. The red bridge crosses the residence's moat, with stone walls on either side. The shrine grounds are the site of the Takeda residence.

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Kofu, Yamanashi

Tsutsujigasaki Castle

武田氏館

The residence where Takeda Shingen lived is now the grounds of a shrine where he is worshiped.

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Kofu, Yamanashi

Maizuru Castle Park

甲府城

Kofu Station itself stands on the site of one of the castle's enclosures.

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Shibata, Niigata

Shibata Castle

新発田城

On the roof of the turret that served as the castle's keep, there are three shachi ornaments instead of the usual pair.

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Sakai, Fukui

Maruoka Castle

丸岡城

An original castle keep that collapsed with its stone base in an earthquake, then was put back together using more than 70 percent of its old timbers.

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Fukui, Fukui

Ichijodani Asakura Family Historic Ruins

一乗谷城

The castle was on the mountaintop; the lord, his retainers and townspeople lived on the valley floor below. An entire Sengoku-era castle town came out of the ground here.

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The Chodomaru bailey in the cedar forest, May 2009. Stone walls supporting the baileys can be seen behind. Accessible paths have changed since the 2024 earthquake, so check the city's latest notice.

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Nanao, Ishikawa

Nanao Castle

七尾城

A giant mountain castle spread over seven ridges in Noto, whose view so impressed its conqueror, Uesugi Kenshin, that he wrote it was even finer than he had heard.

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Kanazawa, Ishikawa

Kanazawa Castle

金沢城

The roofs of the gates and turrets look silvery white because the tiles are wrapped in sheets of lead.

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Takaoka, Toyama

Takaoka Castle

高岡城

More than a third of the castle site is water: moats dug 400 years ago still lie in the middle of town in almost their original shape.

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Inuyama, Aichi

Inuyama Castle

犬山城

Atop a cliff over the Kiso River stands a keep built before the Edo period, and you can walk all the way around its top-floor balcony looking down on the river and the Nobi Plain.

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Aichi

Nagoya Castle

名古屋城

The keep crowned with golden shachi can't be entered today. Using prewar measured drawings and photographs, the city is preparing to rebuild it in wood.

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The keep of Okazaki Castle, September 2015. It is a 1959 reinforced-concrete reconstruction whose exterior closely follows the Edo-period keep.

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Okazaki, Aichi

Okazaki Castle

岡崎城

This is the castle where Tokugawa Ieyasu was born, and the well said to have supplied his first bath still survives on the grounds.

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Shinshiro, Aichi

Nagashino Castle

長篠城

Here 500 defenders held off a 15,000-strong Takeda army. The cliffs where two rivers meet and the main enclosure's great earthen rampart still remain.

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Iga, Mie

Iga Ueno Castle

伊賀上野城

This castle has had three keeps: Tsutsui Sadatsugu's three-tiered one, Todo Takatora's five-tiered keep toppled by a storm just before completion, and a wooden keep built in the Showa era by a local politician with his own money.

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Matsusaka, Mie

Matsusaka Castle

松阪城

Built into the stone base of the keep are the lids of ancient stone coffins from burial mounds.

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Shizuoka

Sunpu Castle

駿府城

Under the lawn of a city park, excavators found two keep bases built by Tokugawa Ieyasu in two different eras, one on top of the other.

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Kakegawa, Shizuoka

Kakegawa Castle

掛川城

At the foot of a keep rebuilt in wood after 140 years stands an Edo-period palace that never left.

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Stone walls on a hilltop enclosure, with the surrounding mountains, June 2009. Iwamura Castle sits on a 717 m peak.

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Ena, Gifu

Iwamura Castle

岩村城

On a 717-meter mountain, tiers of stone walls with no buildings left on them climb through the forest.

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Gifu, Gifu

Gifu Castle

岐阜城

The castle Oda Nobunaga used as his base for unifying Japan was an entire mountain.

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Kyoto

Nijō Castle

二条城

Built in the year the Tokugawa shogunate began, it still has the hall where the shogun announced he would give power back.

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Osaka

Osaka Castle

大阪城

Under the stone walls you see today, Hideyoshi's original Osaka Castle lies buried.

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Nagahama, Shiga

Odani Castle

小谷城

The mountaintop castle where Azai Nagamasa lived with Oichi and their three daughters, and where he took his own life when Nobunaga attacked.

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Hikone, Shiga

Hikone Castle

彦根城

A castle of reuse: its National Treasure keep is said to have come from Otsu Castle, and other buildings and even wall stones from other castles.

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Ōmihachiman, Shiga

Azuchi Castle

安土城

Nobunaga's seven-story tenshu burned only about three years after it was finished; on the summit, just its foundation stones remain in neat rows.

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Ōmihachiman, Shiga

Kannonji Castle

観音寺城

On the mountain next to Nobunaga's Azuchi Castle stood a huge hilltop castle that was walled in stone before Azuchi was even built.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 55CastleMountain

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Asago, Hyogo

Takeda Castle

竹田城

On clear late-autumn mornings, only the stone walls on the summit rise above a sea of clouds.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 56CastleMountain

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Tamba-Sasayama, Hyogo

Sasayama Castle

篠山城

The keep base was built, but a keep never stood on it.

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Akashi, Hyogo

Akashi Castle

明石城

From the station platform you can see two three-story turrets standing at either end of a long stone wall.

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Himeji, Hyogo

Himeji Castle

姫路城

A 400-year-old main keep and its three smaller keeps still stand linked by covered corridors, never burned by battle or by bombing.

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Akō, Hyogo

Akō Castle

赤穂城

In the main enclosure, the floor plan of the palace where Oishi Kuranosuke and the Ako retainers of the Chushingura story gathered is laid out on the ground.

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Takatori, Nara

Takatori Castle

高取城

On a 583-meter mountaintop once stood a keep and 27 white turrets, so bright from the town below that a folk song mistook them for snow.

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Wakayama, Wakayama

Wakayama Castle

和歌山城

A covered bridge with a roof and walls crosses the moat at a slant, built so the lord and the women of his household could pass unseen.

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Tottori, Tottori

Tottori Castle

鳥取城

At the foot of a stone wall bulges a second wall with no corners at all: the Maki-ishigaki, which Tottori City says is the only rounded wall of its kind at any castle in Japan.

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Matsue, Shimane

Matsue Castle

松江城

Two prayer tablets dated "first month of Keicho 16" (early 1611) turned up, and that discovery helped make this keep a National Treasure.

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Yasugi, Shimane

Gassantoda Castle

月山富田城

From the lord's mid-slope palace to the summit runs a single steep switchback, Nanamagari, climbed under fire from above: the defenses of the Amago clan's impregnable mountain castle.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 65CastleMountain

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Tsuwano, Shimane

Tsuwano Castle

津和野城

On autumn and winter mornings, the red-tiled castle town sinks under fog while the high stone walls on the mountaintop float above it.

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Tsuyama, Okayama

Tsuyama Castle

津山城

Only one turret stands today, yet the three tiers of stone walls wrapping an entire hill still show how big this castle was.

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The main enclosure, with the original Edo-period keep at the back right and turrets, gates and walls rebuilt in 1997 in front. Photographed in 2026.

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Takahashi, Okayama

Bitchū Matsuyama Castle

備中松山城

Of the 12 original Edo-period keeps left in Japan, this is the only one that stands on a mountaintop.

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Sōja, Okayama

Ki Castle

鬼ノ城

No keep and no feudal lord: just 2.8 km of earthen wall ringing a mountaintop, built over 1,300 years ago.

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Okayama

Okayama Castle

岡山城

Look at the foot of the black keep and you'll see its base is not square but a lopsided pentagon.

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Fukuyama, Hiroshima

Fukuyama Castle

福山城

Walk around to the north side, and the white keep turns into a wall of black iron.

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Akitakata, Hiroshima

Yoshida-Kōriyama Castle

郡山城

Mori Motonari turned an entire mountain into a castle, and ruled from its summit until the day he died.

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Hiroshima

Hiroshima Castle

広島城

The keep felled by the atomic bomb was rebuilt in concrete as a symbol of recovery. In 2026 that keep closed its doors, and the city is now studying a rebuild in wood.

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Iwakuni, Yamaguchi

Iwakuni Castle

岩国城

The keep on the hilltop was rebuilt about 50 m east of where the original stood, so that it could be seen from the town around Kintaikyo Bridge.

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Hagi, Yamaguchi

Hagi Castle

萩城

The keep is gone, but its stone base, flaring out like an open fan, still reflects in the moat in front of Mt. Shizuki, a hill jutting into the sea.

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Takamatsu, Kagawa

Takamatsu Castle

高松城

The moats hold 100% seawater: the water rises and falls with the tide, and sea bream swim in the inner moat.

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Marugame, Kagawa

Marugame Castle

丸亀城

A small original keep, about 15 m tall, is lifted high by tier upon tier of stone walls, walls that collapsed in 2018 and are still being rebuilt today.

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Tokushima, Tokushima

Tokushima Castle

徳島城

Not a single original building survives, but walls of local blue-green stone, aoishi, still show the shape of the castle.

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Imabari, Ehime

Imabari Castle

今治城

Todo Takatora built this castle right on the shore, and its broad moat is still filled with seawater.

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Matsuyama, Ehime

Matsuyama Castle

松山城

The keep was finished the year after Perry's Black Ships arrived, and its roof tiles bear the hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa clan.

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Ōzu, Ehime

Ōzu Castle

大洲城

Torn down in the Meiji era, the keep was rebuilt in wood in 2004, guided by old photographs and an Edo-period wooden model of its frame.

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Uwajima, Ehime

Uwajima Castle

宇和島城

Both the Edo-period keep and an Edo-period wooden model of it, built at one-tenth scale, survive.

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Kōchi, Kochi

Kōchi Castle

高知城

The lord's palace is still attached to the side of the keep, and the whole Edo-period main enclosure survives intact.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 84CastleHilltop

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Fukuoka

Fukuoka Castle

福岡城

The massive keep base still stands, yet whether a keep was ever built on top of it is still an open question.

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Ōnojō, Fukuoka

Ōno Castle

大野城

Built in 665 to defend the nation, it rings the ridges of Mount Shioji behind Dazaifu with about 8 km of earthen ramparts and stone walls.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 86Ancient mountain fortressMountain

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Karatsu, Saga

Nagoya Castle

名護屋城

For just seven years, daimyo from all over Japan camped around this headland.

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Saga, Saga

Saga Castle

佐賀城

The doors of its gate still carry bullet marks from a civil war fought in 1874.

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Hirado, Nagasaki

Hirado Castle

平戸城

Its lord burned his own castle just before it was finished, and it was rebuilt a century later.

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Shimabara, Nagasaki

Shimabara Castle

島原城

A castle said to be far too grand for a minor lord held off the insurgents of the Shimabara Rebellion.

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Ōita, Oita

Funai Castle

大分府内城

A seaside castle whose builder disliked the place name "Unloading" and renamed it "Raising Cargo".

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Tall stone walls stacked on top of the cliffs at Oka Castle, with mountains beyond, 2009. All the buildings were torn down in the Meiji era; only the stone walls remain.

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Taketa, Oita

Oka Castle

岡城

Stone walls on a clifftop, without a single building left, are said to have inspired Taki Rentaro's song "Kojo no Tsuki" (The Moon over the Ruined Castle).

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 93CastleMountain

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Kumamoto

Kumamoto Castle

熊本城

From a walkway 6 meters above the ground, you look down on stone walls toppled by an earthquake and the repairs happening right now.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 94CastleHilltop

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Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto

Hitoyoshi Castle

人吉城

A castle held by a single family, the Sagara, from the Kamakura period all the way to the Meiji era.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 95CastleHilltop

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Nichinan, Miyazaki

Obi Castle

飫肥城

A castle carved out of a volcanic-ash plateau, fought over by the Ito and Shimazu clans for 84 years.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 96CastleHilltop

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Kagoshima, Kagoshima

Kagoshima Castle

鹿児島城

The castle where the Shimazu, lords of a vast 770,000-koku domain, chose not to build a keep.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 97CastleHilltop

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Nakijin, Okinawa

Nakijin Castle

今帰仁城

The walls of the Hokuzan kings snake along the ridge for 1.5 km. Long after the kings fell and the governors left, people kept coming here to pray.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 98GusukuMountain

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Nakagusuku, Okinawa

Nakagusuku Castle

中城城

Stone walls that amazed Commodore Perry's expedition, and the one gusuku where you can compare all three Ryukyuan styles of stonework side by side.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 99GusukuMountain

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Naha, Okinawa

Shuri Castle

首里城

The royal palace has burned five times and been rebuilt every time. The main hall lost in 2019 reopens in its newest form on November 23, 2026.

Japan's 100 Fine Castles No. 100GusukuHilltop

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A grassy dry moat and earthen bank at the Kunohe Castle ruins, photographed around 2007. Stones can be seen along the foot of the slope on the left. The castle's moats were dry and never held water.

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Ninohe, Iwate

Kunohe Castle

九戸城

The last battlefield of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's campaign to unite Japan, with main-enclosure stone walls, raised after the castle fell, that are thought to be the oldest castle walls in the Tohoku region.

Next 100 Fine Castles No. 104CastleHilltop

Satoshin at Japanese WikipediaCC BY-SA 3.0Wikimedia Commons

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Shiroishi, Miyagi

Shiroishi Castle

白石城

The castle of Katakura Kojuro, right-hand man to Date Masamune: allowed to survive as the Sendai domain's second castle after the one-castle-per-province rule, with its three-story turret rebuilt in wood and clay in 1995.

Next 100 Fine Castles No. 105CastleHilltop

Haseyu-Public domainWikimedia Commons

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Tsuruoka, Yamagata

Tsurugaoka Castle

鶴ヶ岡城

Every castle building was torn down, yet on the site of the main enclosure stands a shrine that local people built themselves out of devotion to their former lords, the Sakai family.

Next 100 Fine Castles No. 108CastleFlatland

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Yonezawa, Yamagata

Yonezawa Castle

米沢城

The grounds of the shrine to Uesugi Kenshin are also the main enclosure of the castle where Date Masamune was born.

Next 100 Fine Castles No. 109CastleFlatland

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