Osaka Castle
大阪城
A 1931 museum keep on Tokugawa walls up to 32 m high, with a stone wall of Hideyoshi's buried castle to see underground
About Osaka Castle
Toyotomi Hideyoshi began Osaka Castle in 1583, but none of his castle is above ground: after the Toyotomi fell in 1615, the Tokugawa shoguns buried it and built their own on top, so every wall and moat you walk past is theirs. The keep is the third on the site, a 1931 concrete rebuild paid for by Osaka's citizens, with a museum on Hideyoshi inside and an outdoor gallery 50 m up. Since 2025 the keep ticket also takes you down to a buried stone wall of Hideyoshi's inner citadel. Around it all spreads a free 105-hectare park with about 3,000 cherry trees.
Essential Tips
The keep takes cards, IC cards and QR payments as well as cash, and tickets can be bought online in advance
There are no coin lockers in the keep: the ticket office keeps bags for ¥100 each (hand them in by 5:30 PM, collect by 6 PM). The park's 24-hour lockers are at JO-TERRACE OSAKA and the Morinomiya fountain square
Strollers stay at the entrance, free of charge; the upper floors are narrow and crowded
No food or drink in the keep, and no walking while looking at your phone
The 100 Castles stamp is at the 1st-floor information counter, inside the paid area
Floors 3 and 4 close on exhibition change days: in 2026, floor 3 on October 8 and November 24, floor 4 on October 9 and November 25
For a photo of the keep towering over the Honmaru's east wall, climb the steps onto the wall on the inside of the Aoyamon gate. Morning sun lights the east face, and a still early morning puts the wall in the moat
For lunch, Miraiza Osaka-jo on the square in front of the keep, built in 1931 as the army's divisional headquarters, has shops and restaurants, and JO-TERRACE OSAKA by Osakajokoen Station has more. There is nowhere under cover to eat a packed lunch in the rain
Taxis cannot drive into the park; the nearest drop-off is the taxi stand at the Otemon gate
From October 15 to 25, 2026, a free projection-mapping show plays on the keep's south face every 20 minutes from 7:00 to 9:40 PM
The keep can close at short notice when a storm or special warning is issued for Osaka City, or when trains are due to stop running
Don't Miss
The Keep, from the Top Floor Down
The lift takes everyone straight up to the 5th floor. From there you climb to the 8th, step out onto the gallery that runs round the outside, and then walk down through the museum. Floor 7 tells Hideyoshi's life in a diorama with a tiny moving Hideyoshi, and floor 5 rebuilds the 1615 summer siege in miniature, down to Sanada Yukimura's men clashing with Matsudaira Tadanao's. The real objects from the collection are on floors 3 and 4 and change about every two months; floor 3 also has a full-size copy of Hideyoshi's golden tea room. On floor 2 you can try on a copy of Hideyoshi's helmet, or Sanada Yukimura's, with a battle surcoat for ¥500.
Toyotomi Stone Wall Museum
The museum opened in April 2025 in the Honmaru and takes you down to a wall of the Tsume-no-maru, the innermost enclosure where Hideyoshi and his wife Nene lived, and later Yodo-dono and her son Hideyori. The wall was found in 1984 with its top about a metre below today's ground, and it drops some 6 m, built of barely worked fieldstones. Look for the scorch marks of the 1615 fire and the foundation stones of old temples reused in it. There are no toilets inside, and it can close without notice if the wall moves.
The Takoishi and the Tokugawa Walls
The walls were raised in the 1620s by 64 daimyo families, mostly from western Japan, with stone cut as far away as Shodoshima, Mount Rokko, Mount Ikoma and northern Kyushu; many blocks weigh over 100 tonnes. The biggest is the Takoishi, just inside the Sakuramon gate, whose face measures about 59 m², the size of 36 tatami mats and the largest of any stone in a Japanese castle wall. The Higo-ishi at the Kyobashi gate comes close, at 32.8 tatami. In front of the keep lies a zannen-ishi, a block cut on Shodoshima for the walls but never shipped, brought here in 1981.
Cherry Blossoms in the Nishinomaru Garden
The Nishinomaru Garden, a lawn west of the keep, holds about 300 of the park's cherry trees, mostly Somei-yoshino. One of them is the Osaka observatory's sample tree: when five or six of its flowers open, the city's cherry season is declared open. In blossom season the garden opens into the evening with the trees lit up. The double-flowered cherries at the Tamatsukuri gate bloom last, after the rest have dropped.
What to Do Here
Otemon to the Keep, Out by Gokurakubashi
Come up from Tanimachi 4-chome and enter by the Otemon, the main gate. The Tamon turret still sits over the inner gate of the walled square behind it, and the Sengan turret, built in 1620, watches the approach from the corner of the moat. Walk east to the Sakuramon gate and the Takoishi; Hokoku Shrine is just to the south. After the keep and the Toyotomi Stone Wall museum, leave north through the Yamazato enclosure and over the Gokurakubashi bridge towards Osakajokoen Station.
Tips:
- In the Yamazato enclosure, below the keep's north side, the Kokuin-ishi plaza lays out more than 80 stones carved with the marks of the daimyo who supplied them
- The keep's 1st-floor theatre runs five films on Hideyoshi and the castle in turn, with English subtitles
- Free audio guides in English, Korean and Chinese are lent at the 1st and 5th-floor information desks from 9 AM to 5 PM
Nishinomaru Garden and the Turret Openings
Tokugawa Ieyasu moved into the Nishinomaru after Hideyoshi's death and built a keep of his own there in 1600. Today it is a lawn with a view of the keep across the inner moat. In spring and autumn you can also go inside the two turrets at the Otemon, the Tamon and the Sengan; in autumn 2026 they open on weekends and holidays until November 29.
Tips:
- Turret openings run 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM (tickets until 3:30 PM, last entry 4:00 PM). The ¥900 ticket includes the garden; a ¥2,000 set with the keep is sold at the keep's ticket gate until 2:30 PM
- Hoshoan, the tea house Matsushita Konosuke gave the city in 1969, serves matcha and a sweet for ¥1,500 (cash only), 10 AM – 4 PM on Thursdays and Fridays from September to November 2026, except October 2, October 16 and November 19
Gozabune Boat round the Inner Moat
A gilded copy of Hideyoshi's state barge, the Hoo-maru, taken from a Toyotomi-period screen of Osaka now at Eggenberg Castle in Austria, circles the inner moat in about 20 minutes. From the water you look straight up the Honmaru walls to the keep, close enough to pick out the daimyo's marks on the stones.
Tips:
- Boats leave every 10-15 minutes from 10 AM every day except over New Year, the last at 4:30 PM
- Tickets are sold only on the day, from 9:30 AM, at the booth just west of the Gokurakubashi bridge; in busy seasons the last sailings can sell out by about 3 PM
- Children ¥900, over-65s ¥1,200; junior high age and under must come with an adult
- Strong wind or bad weather can cut or cancel sailings
Plan Your Visit
Opening Hours
castle
Keep and Toyotomi Stone Wall museum: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (last entry 5:30 PM); closed December 28 to January 1
park
Open 24 hours, free
nishinomaru Garden
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM from March to October, 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM from November to February (last entry 30 minutes before closing); closed Mondays (Tuesday when Monday is a holiday) and December 28 to January 4; different hours in cherry blossom season
Best Time to Visit
A weekday at the 9:00 AM opening, before the keep fills up. For cherry blossoms, late March to early April: from 2021 to 2026 Osaka's full bloom came between March 27 and April 6.
Avoid:
Cherry blossom weekends and Golden Week. On busy afternoons staff can close the keep's ticket queue before the 5:30 PM last entry.
Nearby
Osaka Museum of History
By Tanimachi 4-chome Station at the park's south-west corner: the city's story from the Naniwa Palace, rebuilt full size on the 10th floor, to the 20th century; ¥600, closed Tuesdays.
1.1 km
Hokoku Shrine
The shrine to Hideyoshi, his son Hideyori and his brother Hidenaga, moved to the park's south side in 1961.
450 m
Osaka Mint
Opens its 560 m riverside avenue of mostly late double cherries for one week in early to mid April, by advance booking since 2022.
1.9 km
Gallery
Todo Takatora laid out the walls and moats of the Tokugawa rebuild
The Nishinomaru Garden opened in 1965 on the enclosure where the shogunate's storehouses once stood in rows
About 2,000 kinds of mason's mark have been recorded on the castle's stones, cut by the daimyo who supplied them
The towers of Osaka Business Park stand on the site of the army arsenal that once spread east of the castle
The keep is floodlit after dark; on campaign nights it turns purple, green or cherry pink
The army held the castle until 1945; the first corner of today's park opened in 1924
History
founding
Hideyoshi began the castle in 1583 on the site of the Osaka Honganji, the fortified temple that had held out against Oda Nobunaga from 1570 to 1580. The main enclosure and its gilded keep were up by 1585, and in 1594 work began on an outer line of moats and earthworks, about 2 km square, that took in the castle town as well. Not long after building started, the Jesuit Luis Frois wrote that the castle and town were two or three times as vast and splendid as Nobunaga's Azuchi.
significance
It was Hideyoshi's base as he brought the rest of Japan under his rule. After his death in 1598 the Tokugawa besieged his son Hideyori here in the winter of 1614 and again the next summer, when the castle fell and burned; Hideyori and his mother Yodo-dono killed themselves the following day. From 1620 the shogunate rebuilt it as its stronghold in western Japan. Lightning burned the new keep in 1665, most of the other buildings burned in 1868 after the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, fled the castle, and the army held the grounds until 1945. They became a Special Historic Site in 1955.
reconstruction
Mayor Seki Hajime proposed rebuilding the keep in 1928 to mark the Showa Emperor's enthronement, and the city raised the money from its people. Finished in 1931, it was one of the first keeps rebuilt with modern methods: it stands on the Tokugawa base but copies the Toyotomi keep painted on the screen of the 1615 siege. The 1945 air raids burned several Edo turrets and damaged the keep in places, and a bomb that fell just north of it pushed the stones of the keep base out of line; the shift still shows on its north and east faces. The 1995-97 Heisei renovation restored its 1931 look; it became a registered cultural property in 1997 and a city-designated one in 2025.
name Origin
Until the Meiji era the city was usually written 大坂; 大阪 crept in from the late Edo period and became standard after 1868, which is why the castle museum writes 大坂城 for the castle before 1868 and 大阪城 after. One Edo-period writer said people avoided 坂 because it splits into 土 (earth) and 反 (return), as in returning to the earth; the city's official history of 1913 thought the switch was simply chance.
Getting There
JR Osaka Loop Line
Station: Osakajokoen Station
Walk: About 20 minutes (1.5 km) through the park to the keep
10 minutes from Osaka Station with no change. From Shin-Osaka it takes about 20 minutes with a change at Osaka (¥200).
Osaka Metro Tanimachi or Chuo Line
Station: Tanimachi 4-chome Station
Exit: 1-B (Tanimachi Line) or 9 (Chuo Line)
Walk: About 18 minutes (1.4 km) to the keep via the Otemon gate
From Namba, take the Sennichimae Line to Tanimachi 9-chome and change to the Tanimachi Line: 11 minutes in all. Tanimachi Line trains from Higashi-Umeda or Tennoji run direct in 7 minutes (¥240).
JR Loop Line or Osaka Metro Chuo Line
Station: Morinomiya Station
Exit: 1 or 3-B (subway)
Walk: About 17 minutes (1.3 km) to the keep
Brings you into the park from the south-east; 12 minutes from Osaka Station on the Loop Line.
Aqua-Liner Water Bus
Station: Osaka Castle Port, from Hachikenyahama (Temmabashi) or Yodoyabashi
Walk: About 18 minutes (1.4 km) from the port to the keep
Boats leave hourly on most days and take 25 minutes from Hachikenyahama, 35 from Yodoyabashi. The port is 3 minutes from JR Osakajokoen Station, and the 55-minute round cruise (¥2,000) starts and ends there.
Location
1-1 Osakajo, Chuo Ward, Osaka 540-0002
Nearest: Osakajokoen Station (JR Osaka Loop Line) or Tanimachi 4-chome Station (Osaka Metro Tanimachi and Chuo lines) (About 20 minutes through the park from Osakajokoen, 18 from Tanimachi 4-chome)
Book Osaka Castle tickets
via Klook · affiliate link
Find nearby hotels in Chuo Ward
Compare prices across booking sites
More Attractions
Senso-ji Temple
Tokyo's oldest temple: a 645 AD Buddhist site with a lantern-hung gate, 89-shop street, and 30 million visitors a year
Tokyo Skytree
634 meters of Tokyo: Japan's tallest structure with two observation decks and Mount Fuji visible on clear winter days
Meiji Shrine
A 175-acre forest in central Tokyo holding a Shinto shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji, who opened Japan to the modern world
teamLab Borderless
Step into a surreal world where digital art comes alive around you
teamLab Planets
Walk through water, wade through flowers, and lose your sense of where the art ends and you begin
Shimanami Kaido
A cycling guide to Japan's greatest ride: 70km island-hopping across the Seto Inland Sea
Shibuya Crossing
The world's busiest pedestrian crossing, and Tokyo's most iconic spectacle
Shibuya Sky
Tokyo's best observation deck: open-air rooftop with nothing between you and the city
Ghibli Museum
The museum Miyazaki designed himself: no door sales, timed entry, no photography inside, and a life-size Robot Soldier on the roof
Imperial Palace & East Gardens
Edo Castle's moats still ring the emperor's home, and its old inner compounds are now the free East Gardens
Tsukiji Outer Market
Tokyo's greatest food market: fresh sushi, street food, and culinary chaos since 1935
Toyosu Fish Market
Tokyo's modern wholesale fish market: tuna auctions behind glass and sushi breakfast on the upper floors
Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden
Three gardens in one: Tokyo's most celebrated park and its greatest cherry blossom destination
Tokyo Tower
Tokyo's original icon: cheaper, less crowded, and more romantic than the Skytree
Ueno Park & Museums
Tokyo's cultural centre: four national museums in one park, plus cherry blossoms that draw about 3.3 million visitors
Akihabara Electric Town
Tokyo's otaku hub: anime, electronics, retro games, and maid cafés stacked floor to ceiling
Tokyo Disney Resort
Two world-class theme parks: Disneyland for the classics, DisneySea for the most beautiful Disney park ever built
Fushimi Inari Taisha
Ten thousand vermillion gates winding up a forested mountain: Japan's most-visited Shinto shrine
Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion)
A gold-leaf temple reflected in a mirror pond: Kyoto's most-reproduced image
Kiyomizu-dera
Kyoto's hilltop temple with a wooden stage that floats above the treetops
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
Five hundred metres of bamboo reaching 20 metres overhead, filtering light to green: free, open at dawn, packed by 9 AM
Arashiyama Monkey Park Iwatayama
Wild macaques on a mountain overlooking Kyoto: the monkeys roam free and you're the one in the cage
Nijo Castle
The shogun's Kyoto stronghold: nightingale floors, golden screens, and 400 years of power politics
Nishiki Market
Kyoto's kitchen for 700 years, five blocks of pickles, tofu, and things you have never tasted before
Ryoan-ji Temple
Fifteen stones in white gravel, only fourteen visible from any angle, and no one knows what it means
Philosopher's Path
A 2-kilometer canal walk named after a philosophy professor who thought here every morning for 30 years
Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan
Eight floors spiraling down around a Pacific Ocean tank big enough to hold whale sharks
Kuromon Market
Osaka's kitchen: a 200-year-old market where chefs and visitors eat the city's freshest seafood
Sumiyoshi Taisha
Japan's oldest shrine architectural style and its most striking arched bridge: a world away from the tourist trail
Universal Studios Japan
Super Nintendo World, the Wizarding World, and one of Asia's best theme parks: all in Osaka Bay
Nara Park
Nearly 1,700 wild deer roam freely: bow to them and they'll bow back for a cracker
Todai-ji Temple
The world's largest wooden building and a 15-metre bronze Buddha: scale that leaves you speechless
Kasuga Grand Shrine
Three thousand lanterns lining a forest path to the shrine that has protected Nara since 768 AD
Kamakura Great Buddha (Kotoku-in)
A 13th-century bronze Buddha, 11 meters tall, that has sat in the open air since a storm destroyed its hall in 1498
Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine
The shrine at the center of Kamakura: a 1.8-kilometer approach from the sea, two clan ponds, and yabusame horseback archery since 1192
Hasedera Temple
A 9-meter gilded Kannon statue, hydrangea season that draws thousands, and an ocean view that makes the climb worth it every day
Hokokuji Temple
Two thousand bamboo stalks, a tea house inside the grove, and a quieter alternative to Kyoto's famous bamboo
Enoshima Island
A 4-kilometer island with a three-part shrine, sea caves, a lighthouse, and more cats per square meter than almost anywhere
Nikko Toshogu Shrine
Japan's most extravagant shrine: 55 gold-lacquered buildings, 5,000 carvings, and the tomb of the shogun who unified Japan
Kegon Falls
A 97-meter waterfall from Lake Chuzenji, with a paid elevator to the base and a winter freeze that turns it into a wall of ice
Lake Chuzenji
A volcanic caldera lake at 1,269 meters, the source of Kegon Falls, and Nikko's best place for autumn foliage views over open water
Hakone Shrine
A 1,200-year-old mountain shrine on Lake Ashi, best known for a red torii gate that rises directly from the water
Owakudani
An active volcanic valley on the Hakone Ropeway, with sulfur vents, black eggs boiled in hot springs, and Mt. Fuji overhead on clear days
Kitano Ijinkan
Kobe's hillside district of 19th-century foreign residences: Victorian houses, consulate buildings, and the Weathercock House, from when Kobe was Japan's most cosmopolitan port
Arima Onsen
One of Japan's three oldest hot spring towns: two distinct spring types, 30 minutes from Kobe, with ryokans that have been operating for centuries
Nunobiki Herb Garden
A hillside herb garden above Kobe reached by ropeway, with views over Kobe Bay and the Kii Peninsula, plus Nunobiki Falls on the walk up
Meriken Park & Kobe Port Tower
Kobe's red drum-shaped tower, a quake-scarred wharf left exactly as 1995 left it, and a harbor that lights up at dusk
Cup Noodles Museum
The museum dedicated to instant noodles: design your own Cup Noodle, see the original 1958 kitchen where ramen was invented, and learn why Momofuku Ando changed how the world eats
Yokohama Chinatown
Japan's largest Chinatown: 200+ restaurants in one district established in 1859, with four colored gates and street food around every corner
Sankeien Garden
A 17-hectare garden in Yokohama containing historic buildings relocated from Kyoto and Kamakura, including a 1457 three-story pagoda from a Kyoto temple
Fukuoka Yatai Food Stalls
Fukuoka's open-air food stalls: sit at a counter under a canvas canopy, eat tonkotsu ramen or yakitori, and talk to the owner, Japan's most social street food experience
Kushida Shrine
The central shrine of Hakata: year-round, it holds a 10-meter festival float; in July, the Yamakasa race starts here at 4:59 AM
Ohori Park
A large lake park in central Fukuoka, built on the old castle moat, with a 2-kilometer circuit walk, rental boats, and 1,000 cherry trees
Kenroku-en Garden
The Maeda lords' garden beside Kanazawa Castle: the two-legged Kotoji-toro lantern, the snow-roped Karasaki pine, and a free week at cherry time
Omicho Market
Kanazawa's 280-year-old fresh food market: Sea of Japan seafood, winter crab, and kaisendon rice bowls eaten in the stall itself
Higashi Chaya District
Kanazawa's largest Edo-period geisha district: a single preserved street of wooden teahouses, gold leaf workshops, and morning calm before the tour buses arrive
Hakone Open-Air Museum
An outdoor sculpture park where kids can run free, adults admire Picasso, and everyone soaks their feet
Hida Folk Village (Hida no Sato)
Over 30 traditional farmhouses from the Japanese Alps, relocated and preserved in one beautiful hillside museum
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
The ground zero of the atomic age, transformed into the world's most powerful argument for peace
Hiroshima Castle
Mori Terumoto's castle, 980 m from the hypocentre: the 1958 keep is shut, but the moat, the walls and the Ninomaru are free
Itsukushima Shrine
A shrine built on stilts over the sea, where the tide decides whether the great torii floats or stands on open sand
Korakuen Garden
Wide open lawns, a working tea field, and the black keep of Okayama Castle borrowed as scenery across the Asahi River
Rinno-ji Temple
Nikko's founding temple, where three 8-metre gilded deities stand in for the sacred mountains above the valley
Jigokudani Monkey Park
The only place on Earth where wild monkeys soak in a natural hot spring, at the end of a snowy forest trail
Zenko-ji Temple
A 1,400-year-old temple where the day begins at dawn and salvation is a metal key you find in total darkness
Matsumoto Castle
Japan's oldest five-tiered castle keep, black-walled and moat-ringed, with the Northern Alps stacked up behind it
Nagoya Castle
The 1959 keep is shut, but the Owari lords' palace beside it has been rebuilt in cypress and gold leaf
Ise Grand Shrine (Ise Jingu)
Japan's most sacred Shinto site, rebuilt from scratch every 20 years for 1,300 years so it is forever both ancient and new
Glover Garden
The mansions of Nagasaki's foreign merchants, gathered on a harbor hillside around Japan's oldest Western house
Tsutenkaku Tower
Osaka's retro tower in the Shinsekai neighborhood: 103 meters of 1950s neon nostalgia, the Biliken luck statue, and kushikatsu restaurants on every surrounding block
Shitenno-ji Temple
One of Japan's oldest Buddhist temples, founded 593 AD by Prince Shotoku, with a stone torii gate, a five-story pagoda, and the country's longest-running monthly flea market
Pola Museum of Art
A Western art museum embedded in Hakone's beech forest, with Monet, Picasso, and Renoir displayed in a building designed to disappear into the trees
Kanazawa Castle Park
Seat of the Maeda, lords of Edo Japan's largest domain; its 1788 Ishikawa gate still faces Kenroku-en across a short bridge
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
A glass circle in Kanazawa with a free permanent collection including the famous Swimming Pool illusion, and a building that won SANAA the Pritzker Prize
Hirosaki Castle
Tohoku's only original castle keep, ringed by 2,600 cherry trees whose fallen petals turn the outer moat solid pink in late April
Maruoka Castle
Hokuriku's only original castle keep: a small tower under 120 tonnes of stone roof tiles, on a hill ringed with cherry trees
Inuyama Castle
Japan's oldest standing castle keep, on a bluff over the Kiso River, with a top-floor balcony you can walk all the way round
Hikone Castle
A National Treasure keep above Lake Biwa, with its gate turrets, moats and even the lords' stable still standing around it
Matsue Castle
The San'in region's only original castle keep, black-boarded and finished in 1611, with small covered boats circling the moats below
Bitchu-Matsuyama Castle
Japan's only original castle keep on a mountaintop, 430 m up, and on some autumn dawns an island in a sea of cloud
Marugame Castle
Four tiers of curving stone walls stacked 60 m high under a small 1660 keep, with the Seto Ohashi bridges on the horizon
Matsuyama Castle
Ride a one-seat chairlift over the treetops to the youngest of Japan's twelve original castle keeps, in the middle of Matsuyama
Uwajima Castle
A small keep built to impress in the 1660s, on the wooded hill of a five-sided castle that a shogunate spy took for a square
Kochi Castle
The only original castle keep still joined to its lord's palace, on a hill above the avenue where Kochi holds its Sunday Market