The 100 Fine Castles of Japan

1Nemuro Peninsula Chashi Sites根室半島チャシ跡群Hokkaido

Chashi were Ainu enclosures, used as forts, ritual grounds and lookouts, and the 24 in this national historic site were dug on clifftops around Hokkaido's eastern tip between the 16th and 18th centuries. Only their ditches and mounds survive. Footpaths lead to two of them, Notsukamafu on a headland above the Sea of Okhotsk and Onnemoto near Cape Nosappu, whose flat-topped mound looks from the harbour below like a New Year rice-cake offering.

Getting there: Nosappu-line bus from JR Nemuro Station to Cape Nosappu, 44 min (four or five a day), then 3 km back west along the road to the Onnemoto site. Best: Any time outside winter, when the sites are not cleared of snow.

2Goryokaku五稜郭Hokkaido

One of only two five-pointed star forts in Japan (the other is Tatsuoka, in Saku, Nagano), built from 1857 to 1864 for the Hakodate magistrate, and the place where the Boshin War's last battle ended in 1869. The earth ramparts and moat are original, and so is a single clay-walled provisions store; the magistrate's office, torn down in 1871, was rebuilt in timber in 2010, though only the third of it that old photographs show.

Getting there: Tram from Hakodate Station to Goryokaku-koen-mae, 16 min, then about 18 min on foot to the magistrate's office. Best: Late April to early May, when about 1,500 cherry trees bloom around the moat; see the star shape from the 107 m Goryokaku Tower next door. Our Hakodate guide

3Matsumae Castle松前城Hokkaido

The shogunate ordered this castle to guard the northern frontier, and it was finished in 1854, one of the last ever built in the Japanese style. Its timber keep survived the Meiji demolitions and was a National Treasure until a fire spreading from the town hall burned it in 1949. The concrete copy of 1960 houses a museum, and the Honmaru gate beside it, the castle's one surviving building, is an Important Cultural Property.

The keep's museum opens only from April 10 to December 10 (9:00–17:00) and is closed through the winter.

Getting there: About 90 min by Hakodate Bus from Kikonai Station (Hokkaido Shinkansen) to the Matsushiro stop, then 10 min on foot; there is no direct bus from Hakodate. Best: Late April to mid-May, when some 10,000 cherry trees of 250 varieties bloom in relay for more than a month. Our Hakodate guide

4Hirosaki Castle弘前城Aomori

Tohoku's only original keep is small for a reason: in 1810 the lord got permission to build it by calling it a replacement corner turret, and at three tiers and 14.4 m it still looks like one. All nine buildings are Important Cultural Properties, and the five gates and three turrets around the keep are nearly two centuries older, from the castle's first years around 1611.

The keep's interior has been closed since November 24, 2025. Once the keep is back on its rebuilt stone base (the city plans this for November 2026; on September 18 it was partway through its second of three moves) it gets seismic and preservation work, and Hirosaki City expects the interior to stay closed through fiscal 2032. The park stays open, and the keep's exterior remains visible until a protective shelter goes up around autumn 2028.

Getting there: Dotemachi loop bus (Konan Bus) from JR Hirosaki Station to Shiyakusho-mae, 16 min, then 3 min on foot to the Otemon gate. Best: Mid to late April, when the cherry trees around the moats bloom. Visitor guide · Our Hirosaki guide

5Nejo Castle根城Aomori

The Nanbu clan held this flat castle from 1334 until a change of domain emptied it in 1627. Eleven years of excavation let Hachinohe rebuild the Honmaru as it stood in the late 1500s, with the main hall, workshop, stable, barn and board storehouse back on their sites, and inside the main hall a lord's New Year ceremony is staged.

The Hachinohe City Museum beside the site is closed for renovation from October 6, 2025 to June 30, 2027 (planned); the castle site stays open as usual.

Getting there: City or Nanbu bus (via Tamonoki) from JR Hachinohe Station to the Nejo stop, about 12 min.

6Morioka Castle盛岡城Iwate

Morioka is a castle of granite, quarried on the spot and built up over 36 years, from 1597 to 1633, on a hill where the Kitakami and Nakatsu rivers meet. Its buildings were sold off and pulled down in 1874 and none has been rebuilt, so you come for the walls, unworked boulders on the Honmaru's east side and squared blocks laid in neat courses on the Ninomaru's west. Ishikawa Takuboku's tanka about lying in the castle grass at fifteen is carved on a stone in the park.

Getting there: 15 min walk from JR Morioka Station. Our Morioka guide

7Tagajo多賀城Miyagi

Not a castle but the Nara court's base for governing and garrisoning the north, founded in 724 and the political and military centre of Tohoku until the mid-11th century. The government compound on the hill survives as excavated platforms. Below it the south gate stands again, rebuilt in timber with its rammed-earth walls and open since April 2025, and the stele beside it, carved in 762 with the founding date, became a National Treasure in 2024.

Getting there: 10 min on foot from JR Kokufu-Tagajo Station (Tohoku Main Line) to the south gate; the government compound is 1.3 km from the station.

8Sendai Castle仙台城Miyagi

Date Masamune began his castle on Aobayama in 1601, with the cliff above the Hirose River as its eastern wall. Its main gate and turret, made National Treasures in 1931, burned in the air raid of July 1945, leaving a stretch of earthen wall by the gate site as the only Edo-period structure. The turret went back up in timber and mortar in 1967, the city plans to rebuild the gate by 2036, and on the Honmaru you get stone walls, the view over Sendai and Masamune on horseback.

Getting there: Loople Sendai sightseeing bus from JR Sendai Station (west exit, stop 16) to Sendai-jo-ato, about 23 min; or 20 min on foot from Kokusai Center Station on the Tozai subway line. Our Sendai guide

9Kubota Castle久保田城Akita

Kubota never had stone walls or a keep; the Satake clan, moved here from Hitachi, built it in 1603 of earth ramparts and moats on a low hill. The Omonogashira guardhouse, dated to between 1758 and 1778, is its one original building. The Honmaru's front gate is a timber reconstruction of 1999–2001, based on old drawings and excavation, and a corner turret built in 1989 keeps the recorded two storeys but adds a lookout on top.

Getting there: 15 min walk from JR Akita Station to the Ninomaru. Our Akita guide

10Yamagata Castle山形城Yamagata

Mogami Yoshiaki's castle had three rings of moats, and counting the outermost it covered 235 hectares, the largest castle in Tohoku, yet it never had a keep. What you walk today is the Ninomaru's moat and earthworks with its east gate, reconstructed in wood by 1991 (the turret rooms open free from April to early November), and the Honmaru's Ichimonji gate, rebuilt in stages from 2003 to 2014. The east gate has stood in for Edo Castle on film, in the 2014 comedy Samurai Hustle.

Getting there: 15 min walk from the east exit of JR Yamagata Station to the Ninomaru east gate. Our Yamagata guide

11Nihonmatsu Castle二本松城Fukushima

At the foot of the hill stand the Minowa gate and its attached turret, a 1982 reconstruction in wood. Up at the summit, the keep base and Honmaru walls were relaid in 1993–95 by descendants of the Anō masons who first built them, and no keep stands on them. The castle fell to the imperial army in 1868 after the domain sent out a corps of boys to defend it, and their statues stand below the gate, where they set out.

Getting there: About 20 min walk from JR Nihonmatsu Station. Best: Mid-October to late November, when the chrysanthemum doll festival fills the park (October 10 to November 23 in 2026); the maples peak in early November.

12Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle会津若松城Fukushima

Tsuruga-jo, as Aizu calls it, took a month of attack in the 1868 Boshin War before the domain surrendered, and was pulled down in 1874. The five-tier keep is a 1965 concrete rebuild with a museum inside; since 2011 it has worn the glazed red tiles the domain developed to survive Aizu's winters, which makes it the only keep in Japan with a red roof. The Hoshii turret and the long southern corridor-turret beside it are timber reconstructions from 2001.

Getting there: Haikara-san loop bus from JR Aizu-Wakamatsu Station to Tsurugajo-iriguchi, 17 min (every 30 min), then 5 min on foot. Our Aizuwakamatsu guide

13Shirakawa-Komine Castle白河小峰城Fukushima

When the 2011 earthquake brought down Komine's walls in ten places, the stones went back where they had come from, and the techniques from that repair, finished in March 2019, have since been used at Kumamoto and Marugame. The walls date from Niwa Nagashige's rebuild of 1627–32, which faced both the Honmaru and the Ninomaru in stone. The three-tier turret that served as the keep was rebuilt in timber in 1991 from an 1808 drawing and excavation, and the front gate followed in 1994.

The Shimizu gate is being rebuilt, and its approach has been closed since May 2024; until the work ends (planned for March 2027) you climb to the Honmaru by a temporary staircase about 60 m to the west.

Getting there: The Honmaru is about 500 m north of JR Shirakawa Station.

14Mito Castle水戸城Ibaraki

The Mito Tokugawa, the branch house that produced the last shogun, held a castle of earth ramparts and dry moats with no stone walls, and its three-tier turret, which served as the keep, burned in the air raid of August 1945. The Kodokan, the domain school founded in 1841, is the part to see, its main gate and halls Important Cultural Properties. The Otemon (2020) and a Ninomaru corner turret (2021) are new timber rebuilds, and the oldest survivor, a Yakui gate from the late 1500s, stands inside a high school.

Getting there: 10 min walk from the north exit of JR Mito Station to the Otemon; the Kodokan is next to it. Our Mito guide

15Ashikaga Clan Hall足利氏館Tochigi

The family that later gave Japan fifteen shoguns built this moated square at the end of the 12th century as a home, and it never had a tower. Earth banks and a moat still enclose its 4 hectares, with a gate on each side, and inside stands Banna-ji, the temple Ashikaga Yoshikane founded here in 1196; its National Treasure main hall was rebuilt in 1299 by Ashikaga Sadauji, father of the first Ashikaga shogun.

Getting there: About 10 min walk from Ashikaga Station on the JR Ryomo Line.

16Minowa Castle箕輪城Gunma

Minowa's dry moats run up to 40 m wide and 10 m deep around the Honmaru, and a rebuilt wooden bridge, finished in 2022, carries you across one. The Nagano clan, who built the castle around 1500, held it against Takeda Shingen until 1566; the Takeda, Oda, Hojo and Tokugawa followed, and in 1598 Ii Naomasa moved his seat to Takasaki and left it empty. Two gates have been rebuilt in wood on their excavated foundation stones, in 2016 and in April 2026.

Getting there: Gunma Bus from JR Takasaki Station (west exit, stop 2) toward Ikaho Onsen, about 30 min to Shiroyama-iriguchi, then 15 min on foot.

17Kanayama Castle金山城Gunma

Digs on Mount Kanayama since 1992 turned up so much stone walling and paving that they overturned the accepted view that mountain castles in Warring States Kanto had no real stone walls. The castle, founded in 1469, spreads along the ridges of the 239 m hill above Ota, and the restored route climbs past the Moon Pond and through a high-walled main gate to the Sun Pond. On clear autumn and winter days you can see Tokyo Skytree across the Kanto plain.

Getting there: Realistically a taxi from Tobu Ota Station, 12 min to the car park on the ridge; on foot it is 50 min to the guidance centre at the foot of the hill, then 30 min up.

18Hachigata Castle鉢形城Saitama

Hachigata sits on the cliffs where the Fukazawa River meets the Arakawa; Nagao Kageharu founded it in 1476, and Hojo Ujikuni enlarged it into one of the biggest castles in Kanto. In 1590 it held out for more than a month against Maeda Toshiie and Uesugi Kagekatsu until Ujikuni surrendered on June 14 in return for his garrison's lives. The earth ramparts and moats survive, and the Sannokuruwa has been rebuilt from excavation with stone-faced earth walls, a four-legged gate and a pond.

Getting there: 25 min walk from Yorii Station (JR, Chichibu Railway and Tobu Tojo lines), or an Eagle Bus toward Washi-no-sato to Hachigata-jo Rekishikan-mae, then 5 min on foot.

19Kawagoe Castle川越城Saitama

Almost nothing is left of the castle except part of the palace Matsudaira Naritsune completed in 1848. Of its original 16 buildings, the entrance under a great curved gable survives with the rooms behind it, including a 36-mat grand hall, and the chief retainers' office stands beside it, relocated and restored. Both are Saitama prefectural cultural properties, and entry is ¥100.

Getting there: Koedo sightseeing buses from Kawagoe or Hon-Kawagoe Station stop at Hakubutsukan-mae, a minute away; or 10 min on foot from the Fuda-no-tsuji bus stop. Our Saitama guide

20Sakura Castle佐倉城Chiba

Sakura was built without a single stone wall. Doi Toshikatsu raised it from 1611 to 1616 to guard the eastern approach to Edo, using water moats, dry moats and earth ramparts on a plateau above the lowlands. The army regiment quartered here after the Meiji Restoration cleared away the turrets and gates but left the earthworks, so you walk past the keep site, a huge dry moat before a gate outwork and the regiment's own remains; the National Museum of Japanese History stands on the outer Shiinoki enclosure.

Getting there: 20 min on foot from Keisei Sakura Station, or 5 min by bus from its south exit to the National Museum of Japanese History, then 5 min on foot.

21Edo Castle江戸城Tokyo

The shoguns' castle is now the Imperial Palace, and its old Honmaru is the free East Gardens. The 58 m keep, finished in 1638, burned in the great fire of 1657; its stone base was rebuilt, but the shogun's uncle and adviser Hoshina Masayuki argued that a peaceful age needed no keep, so the platform you climb has stood empty ever since. The buildings that remain include the three-tier Fujimi turret of 1659, at the south corner of the Honmaru, and the Tayasu gate of 1636 at the north entrance to Kitanomaru Park, the oldest of them all.

Getting there: 5 min walk from Otemachi Station (exit C13a) to the Otemon gate; the East Gardens are closed on Mondays and Fridays (they open on national holidays except the Emperor's Birthday, and close the next day after a holiday Monday) and from December 28 to January 3. Visitor guide · Our Tokyo guide

22Hachioji Castle八王子城Tokyo

Hojo Ujiteru's mountain castle was stormed and taken in a single day in 1590, while he and his chief retainers were holding Odawara Castle, and losing it is what finally made Odawara surrender. From the guidance centre at the foot, a path crosses a rebuilt wooden bridge and climbs stone steps into the Goshuden, Ujiteru's residence terrace, restored in 1990 largely with the excavated stones; a separate trail climbs to the Honmaru on the summit. Entry is free.

Getting there: Nishi Tokyo Bus from JR Takao Station (north exit, stop 1): at weekends and on holidays route Jo01 runs to Hachioji-joato in 10 min; on other days ride to Reien-mae/Hachioji-joato-iriguchi and walk 20 min.

23Odawara Castle小田原城Kanagawa

Before Hideyoshi's attack in 1590 the Hojo wrapped their whole castle town in a 9 km ring of earth ramparts and moats, and stretches survive in the hills behind, best at Komine-Okanenodai, where a dry moat almost 20 m wide zigzags through the woods. The keep is a 1960 concrete copy based on a model and drawings from its early 18th-century rebuilding, with a museum inside and a top-floor balcony the original never had. The Akagane and Umadashi gates, rebuilt in wood in 1997 and 2009, are the more convincing buildings.

Getting there: 10 min walk from Odawara Station (JR, Odakyu and other lines). Our Hakone guide

24Takeda Clan Hall武田氏館Yamanashi

Three generations of Takeda lords, Nobutora, Shingen and Katsuyori, lived and governed in this square, moated residence, begun in 1519, and Takeda Shrine has stood on its main compound since 1919. Around it you can walk the moats and earth ramparts and the western enclosure built in 1551 for Shingen's heir. The high stone keep base is not Takeda work: it went up after the clan fell in 1582, when the site served the Oda, Tokugawa and Toyotomi in turn.

Getting there: Yamanashi Kotsu bus from JR Kofu Station (north exit, stop 2) to Takeda Jinja, 8 min. Our Kofu guide

25Kofu Castle甲府城Yamanashi

Hideyoshi had Kofu built to keep watch on Tokugawa Ieyasu after moving him to the Kanto in 1590, and Asano Nagamasa and his son finished it around 1594. The railway and Kofu Station took its outer enclosures, so what survives is the inner castle in Maizuru Castle Park, with its high stone walls, the Inari turret rebuilt in wood in 2004 and the Kurogane gate in 2013. Climb the keep base on a clear day and Mount Fuji is in view.

Getting there: 5 min walk from JR Kofu Station to Maizuru Castle Park. Our Kofu guide

26Matsushiro Castle松代城Nagano

This was Takeda Shingen's Kaizu Castle, raised around 1560 as his base for the Kawanakajima campaigns against Uesugi Kenshin, with the Chikuma River for its outer moat; the Sanada ruled from it from 1622 until the Meiji era, and their later residence, the Shin-goten, is part of the same historic site. In 2004 Nagano City rebuilt the Taikomon gate, its wooden bridge and the Honmaru's stone walls, ramparts and moats, and entry is free.

Getting there: Alpico bus 30 from Nagano Station (Zenkoji exit, stop 3) toward Matsushiro, 30 min to Matsushiro-eki, then 5 min on foot.

27Ueda Castle上田城Nagano

Sanada Masayuki began Ueda in 1583 with Tokugawa help and then turned it on them twice, beating off more than 7,000 men in 1585 and holding up the future shogun Hidetada's 38,000 on their way to Sekigahara in 1600. The castle was pulled down in 1601 and rebuilt by the Sengoku clan. Its three turrets are Edo-period originals and Nagano prefectural treasures, though only the West turret never moved: the North and South turrets were sold off in the Meiji era, bought back from a Tokyo restaurant and re-erected in 1949 either side of the East gate, itself rebuilt in 1994.

The North and South turrets can be visited inside from April to mid-November, except on Wednesdays and the day after national holidays; the park itself is open all year.

Getting there: 12 min walk from Ueda Station (JR, Shinano Railway and Ueda Electric Railway).

28Komoro Castle小諸城Nagano

Komoro is an ana-jiro, a 'hole castle' set lower than the town it guarded, with the deep ravines of Mount Asama's foothills for dry moats and the Chikuma River cliffs at its back. Two gates are Important Cultural Properties, the Otemon built by Sengoku Hidehisa and the Sannomon at the entrance to Kaikoen park; of the keep, struck by lightning and burned in 1626, only the stone base remains. Shimazaki Toson taught in the town from 1899, and his poem about the old castle of Komoro is carved on a stone in the park in his own hand.

Getting there: Kaikoen, entered through the Sannomon, is a 3 min walk from Komoro Station; the Otemon stands just north of the station.

29Matsumoto Castle松本城Nagano

Matsumoto City dates the black five-tier keep to 1593–94, when Hideyoshi's men built it to face Tokugawa Ieyasu in the Kanto, hence its 115 arrow and gun ports and 11 stone-drop hatches; of the twelve original keeps it is the oldest with five tiers and six floors. The black lacquer on its boarding is renewed every year from late August to October, when part of the outside is hidden by scaffolding and white sheeting but the interior stays open.

Getting there: 20 min walk from JR Matsumoto Station, or about 10 min on the Town Sneaker loop bus. Visitor guide · Our Matsumoto guide

30Takato Castle高遠城Nagano

In March 1582 Takeda Shingen's son Nishina Morinobu refused Oda Nobutada's demand to surrender Takato, and the castle, on a river terrace 80 m above the Mibu River, fell in less than a day, with Morinobu and many of his men dead. Takato never had a keep or high stone walls; what survives is moats, earth ramparts, the old main gate, cut down in size and brought back after the war, and the Shintokukan domain school, the only Edo-period building left. Cherries were planted from 1876, and 1,500 Takato-kohigan trees now cover it in small pale-pink flowers.

Getting there: JR Iida Line to Ina-shi or Inakita, then 25 min by bus to Takato and 20 min on foot. Best: Late March to mid-April, when the Takato-kohigan cherries bloom.

31Shibata Castle新発田城Niigata

The front gate and the two-tier corner turret brought in from the Ninomaru are mid-Edo originals and Important Cultural Properties, and they stand on the castle's only stone walls, cut blocks fitted without gaps; everything else was earth rampart. Most of the grounds are still a Ground Self-Defense Force camp, and that is where the three-tier turret rebuilt in 2004 stands, its T-shaped roof ridge carrying three shachi fish instead of the usual pair, which no other castle has.

Open April to November, 9:00–17:00 (to 16:30 in November), and closed from December to late March. The original corner turret is shut for conservation repairs from July 24 to November 30, 2026. The rebuilt three-tier turret, inside the Self-Defense Force camp, can only be seen from outside; the rebuilt Tatsumi turret in the park can be entered.

Getting there: 20 min walk from JR Shibata Station.

32Kasugayama Castle春日山城Niigata

Uesugi Kenshin's seat spreads about 2 km across the 180 m Kasugayama. When the Hori clan left in 1607 for a new castle by the port, it was abandoned and never rebuilt, so its terraces, dry moats, wells and gate sites still run unbroken from the summit down to a 1.2 km outer moat and rampart at the foot. From the Kenshin statue and Kasugayama Shrine it is half an hour up, past the rebuilt Bishamondo hall, to the Honmaru and its view over the Sea of Japan.

Getting there: 40 min on foot from Kasugayama Station (Echigo Tokimeki Railway) to Kasugayama Shrine, or a Kubiki Bus to Chuyashiki, then 20 min on foot.

33Takaoka Castle高岡城Toyama

Maeda Toshinaga built Takaoka in 1609, and six years later the shogunate's one-castle-per-province order closed it. His successor Toshitsune never filled in the moats, so the water moats and the chain of fortified gate enclosures around the Honmaru survive almost exactly as laid out, though not one original building does. It has been a public park since 1875, with a shrine, a small zoo and the city museum inside the moats.

Getting there: 15 min walk from JR Takaoka Station (Kojo-koen exit). Our Toyama guide

34Nanao Castle七尾城Ishikawa

Nanao takes its name from the seven ridges, the 'seven tails', over which the Hatakeyama lords of Noto spread this 252 ha mountain castle in the early 16th century; Uesugi Kenshin took it in 1577. The stonework is unworked fieldstone, stacked in stepped tiers below the Honmaru and around the Sakura-no-baba, and from the top, at 305 m, you look over Nanao Bay and Notojima, the view Kenshin is remembered for praising.

The January 2024 Noto earthquake brought down or cracked stone walls in more than 23 places, mostly around the main enclosures, and some areas are still closed. The road up to the Honmaru car park is open, and the old main path from Hakamagoshi to the Chodomaru reopened on August 8, 2026; footing is poor, so wear boots.

Getting there: Marine-go loop bus from JR Nanao Station to Joshi-shiryokan-mae, 13 min, then a 150 min round-trip climb from the trailhead; by car you can drive up to the car park north of the Honmaru.

35Kanazawa Castle金沢城Ishikawa

Fire kept taking the Maeda lords' castle, and three Edo buildings came through, all Important Cultural Properties: the Sanjukken storehouse of 1858, the Tsurumaru storehouse of 1848 and the Ishikawa gate of 1788. With Osaka's Otemon, the Ishikawa gate is one of only two castle gate compounds in Japan whose enclosing buildings all survive. The Hishi turret, the 50-bay storehouse and the Hashizume gate turret were rebuilt in wood with traditional methods in 2001, and the Nezumita gate in 2020.

The January 2024 Noto earthquake brought down stone walls in 5 places and deformed them in 23. Repairs are under way, and since July 19, 2025 you can walk through the Imori-bori yard where the fallen stones are being sorted and recorded.

Getting there: Bus from Kanazawa Station to Kenrokuen-shita/Kanazawa-jo, then 5 min on foot to the Ishikawa gate; a taxi from the station takes 10 min. Visitor guide · Our Kanazawa guide

36Maruoka Castle丸岡城Fukui

Maruoka's small two-tier keep is the only one of Japan's twelve original keeps with a stone roof. The 1948 Fukui earthquake brought it down with its stone base, and it was reassembled by 1955 with more than 70 percent of its original pillars and beams; the five-sided moat, up to 90 m wide, that once ringed the hill and the second bailey was almost all filled in between the late Meiji and early Showa eras.

Under a seismic and roof repair from March 2026 to about November 2027 (Sakai City). The keep is scaffolded and was closed September 1–18, 2026; it reopened September 19 with part of the first floor closed and no outside views, and closes again November 9 to December 4, 2026 (planned). Check the city's monthly schedule before going.

Getting there: Keifuku bus to the Maruoka-jo stop: 18–19 min from Awara-Onsen Station (Hokuriku Shinkansen) or 50–55 min from Fukui Station. Visitor guide · Our Fukui guide

37Ichijodani Castle一乗谷城Fukui

For five generations the Asakura ruled Echizen from this valley town, until Oda Nobunaga's army burned it in 1573; the capital moved to Kitanosho, and the valley lay under rice fields until excavation began in 1967. The 278 ha Special Historic Site takes in the mountain castle on the 473 m peak above, four of its gardens are Special Places of Scenic Beauty, and a block of the town has been rebuilt full size on its own excavated wall stones and foundation stones.

Slopes gave way in parts of the site in the heavy rain of August 30, 2026, and some paths are closed; the gardens and the rebuilt town are open as usual (notice of September 3, 2026).

Getting there: Keifuku bus 62 from Fukui Station (west exit, stop 5) to Fukugen-machinami, 25 min; or the JR Kuzuryu Line to Ichijodani Station, 15 min, a 3 min walk from the site museum. Our Fukui guide

38Iwamura Castle岩村城Gifu

Counted with Takatori and Bitchu-Matsuyama among Japan's three great mountain castles, Iwamura stands 717 m up, higher than the seat of any other Edo-period domain. In the 1570s the late lord's widow, an aunt of Oda Nobunaga, held it and surrendered it to the Takeda by marrying their general; when Nobunaga's army took it back in 1575, he had her put to death. The buildings came down in 1873, leaving tiers of stone wall and a stone-paved climb of 20 minutes from the lord's residence site, where the main gate and drum tower have been rebuilt.

Getting there: Akechi Railway from JR Ena to Iwamura Station, then 20 min on foot to the lord's residence site.

39Gifu Castle岐阜城Gifu

Oda Nobunaga took the castle on the 329 m summit of Mount Kinka in 1567, renamed the town Gifu and began using his Tenka Fubu seal, his claim to the whole country. No keep stood up there from the early 1600s until a wooden one was built in 1910; it burned in 1943, and the white tower you see is its concrete replacement of 1956. Down in Gifu Park, excavation since the 1980s has uncovered his residence, laid out around a large pond and garden.

The keep is closed for renovation and a new exhibition from May 19, 2026, and the castle museum beside it from April 1, 2026, both until late October 2027, reopening in November 2027 (planned). The ropeway still runs; until the end of September 2027 the Meiso-no-komichi and Hanadaka trails end short of the summit.

Getting there: Gifu Bus from JR Gifu Station to Gifu-koen/Gifu-jo, 15 min, then the 4 min Kinkazan Ropeway and 8 min on foot to the keep. Our Gifu guide

40Yamanaka Castle山中城Shizuoka

Not a stone was used at Yamanaka, the Hojo castle astride the Hakone road: its defences are earth, above all the Hojo's trademark moats, shoji-bori divided into a grid by earth ridges and ribbed une-bori. Hideyoshi's 67,000 men took it from 4,000 defenders in half a day in 1590 and it was abandoned; Mishima City excavated it from 1973 and turfed the moats to protect them and keep the pattern readable, with Mount Fuji rising beyond them on clear days. Apart from a few wooden bridges nothing has been rebuilt, and entry is free.

Moat slopes damaged by the October 2019 typhoon and the July 2021 rains, several of them in the Nishinomaru, are being repaired, with completion planned by March 2027. Every path is open, but short closures around the works are possible.

Getting there: Tokai Bus from JR Mishima Station toward Motohakone-ko, 30 min to Yamanaka-jo-ato.

41Sunpu Castle駿府城Shizuoka

After handing the shogun's title to his son in 1605, Ieyasu kept governing from Sunpu, in a castle the other lords were ordered to rebuild for him from 1607. Its keep burned in 1635 and never came back, and in 1896 even the base was torn down to fill the inner moat; digs from 2016 to 2020 found it again, overlapping an older base Ieyasu had built in the 1580s. Around the Ninomaru moat stand three timber reconstructions, the L-shaped Tatsumi turret (1989), the east gate (1996) and the Hitsujisaru turret (2014), stripped of floorboards and ceilings so you can look up into its frame.

The keep-base dig and its information hall closed on December 26, 2025 while Shizuoka City builds an outdoor display and a visitor centre there, with reopening planned for spring 2027 or later. The park, the east gate and both turrets stay open.

Getting there: About 15 min walk from JR Shizuoka Station. Our Shizuoka guide

42Kakegawa Castle掛川城Shizuoka

In 1994 Kakegawa became the first castle in Japan to rebuild its keep in authentic timber construction, 140 years after the Ansei earthquake of 1854 wrecked the original. The keep is small, 12 m by 10 m, and its projecting bays and the turret at its door are there to make it look bigger. Below it the Ninomaru Palace, rebuilt after the same earthquake and finished in 1861, is one of four castle palaces left in Japan and an Important Cultural Property; the lord came in by the formal porch, foot soldiers by the earth-floored door on the north side.

Getting there: 7 min walk from JR Kakegawa Station (Tokaido Shinkansen and Tokaido Line). Our Shizuoka guide

43Inuyama Castle犬山城Aichi

Tree-ring dating puts the felling of the keep's timbers at 1585–87, the earliest date for any keep still standing, and it is the only building left on its bluff above the Kiso River. Aichi Prefecture pulled down everything else from 1871, but the stone walls and dry moats survive, and several of the castle's gates now stand at temples in and around Inuyama.

Getting there: 20 min walk from Meitetsu Inuyama Station (west exit), which is 26–29 min from Meitetsu Nagoya by limited express. Visitor guide · Our Nagoya guide

44Nagoya Castle名古屋城Aichi

The 1945 air raid burned the keep with the largest floor area of any ever built in Japan, and its 1959 steel-and-concrete replacement has been shut since 2018 for poor earthquake resistance while the city plans a rebuild in timber. Visit the Hommaru Palace instead, rebuilt in cypress and finished in 2018, its rooms hung with copies of painted panels that were taken down and stored away before the 1945 air raid and survive as Important Cultural Properties. Three corner turrets and three gates also came through the war.

The keep is closed to entry and the castle still gives no reopening date (checked September 26, 2026). The grounds, the Hommaru Palace and the Nishinomaru treasure hall are open 9:00 to 16:30; the three original corner turrets are normally closed to visitors.

Getting there: 5 min walk from exit 7 of Nagoya-jo Station on the Meijo subway line; admission ¥1,000 from October 1, 2026. Visitor guide · Our Nagoya guide

45Okazaki Castle岡崎城Aichi

Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in this castle, and the park keeps the well that tradition says gave the water for his first bath. Most of what stands is modern: a 1959 concrete keep of three roofs and five floors with exhibits inside, a 1993 main gate about 200 m from where the real one stood, and an east corner turret rebuilt in wood in 2010. The moats and stone walls are the old castle, among them the Seikai moat named after the castle's 15th-century founder, and with cherry trees along the rivers beside it the park is one of Japan's 100 finest blossom spots.

Getting there: 15 min walk from Higashi-Okazaki Station on the Meitetsu Nagoya Line.

46Nagashino Castle長篠城Aichi

This castle on the cliff where the Toyo and Ure rivers meet held out against Takeda Katsuyori in 1575 until Nobunaga and Ieyasu arrived and beat him at Shitaragahara. Its messenger Torii Sune'emon slipped through the siege to fetch help and was caught on the way back; ordered to shout to the walls that no one was coming, he shouted that they were, and the Takeda crucified him across the river, where a monument now stands. Nothing is built on the site; a big earth rampart and the inner moat guard its east side, and the two rivers the rest.

Getting there: About 8 min walk from Nagashinojo Station on the JR Iida Line.

47Iga-Ueno Castle伊賀上野城Mie

Todo Takatora's west wall, about 30 m of stone rising from the inner moat and a match for Osaka Castle's, is the reason to come; Kurosawa filmed it for Kagemusha. Takatora's five-tier keep blew down in a storm in 1612 before it was finished and was never rebuilt. The white tower on its base went up in 1935, three tiers of timber on a platform meant for five, paid for by the local Diet member Kawasaki Katsu and his supporters, and its top-floor ceiling holds 46 panels of painting and calligraphy given by Yokoyama Taikan and others.

Getting there: About 8 min walk from Uenoshi Station on the Iga Railway, 7 min from JR Iga-Ueno; admission ¥600. Our Tsu guide

48Matsusaka Castle松阪城Mie

Gamo Ujisato raised it in three years from 1588 on a 38 m hill, and no building survives, but the walls do: unworked boulders around the keep base from the first build, squared later repairs in the Ninomaru, and the lids of ancient stone coffins set into the keep base among the building stone. The scholar Motoori Norinaga's house was moved into the grounds in 1909. Outside the rear gate, the Gojoban-yashiki, two long rows of houses built in 1863 for the castle's 20 guard families, is still lived in by their descendants.

Getting there: About 15 min walk from JR and Kintetsu Matsusaka Station; free. Our Tsu guide

49Odani Castle小谷城Shiga

The Azai lords' mountain castle ran along a ridge of Mount Odani, its Honmaru at 335 m, well below the 495 m summit. When Nobunaga took it in 1573, Azai Nagamasa killed himself, and his wife Oichi, Nobunaga's sister, was brought out with their three daughters. Nothing stands now, but the ridge keeps its chain of terraced enclosures and, at Yamaomaru, the castle's great stone wall.

Getting there: About 30 min walk from JR Kawake Station (Hokuriku Line) to the Odani Castle museum at the foot of the trail.

50Hikone Castle彦根城Shiga

Hikone's keep above Lake Biwa is a National Treasure, and a good deal of the castle around it survives too: the Tenbin-yagura and Taikomon gate turrets, the Nishi-no-maru three-tier turret, the Sawaguchi tamon and even the lords' stable, the only castle stable of its size left in Japan, are Important Cultural Properties, and the inner and middle moats keep their stone walls. The outer moat was mostly lost to later building; a stretch of its earth bank at the south-east corner joined the Special Historic Site in 2016.

Getting there: 15 min walk from JR Hikone Station, then about 10 min uphill from the Omotemon gate to the keep. Visitor guide · Our Otsu guide

51Azuchi Castle安土城Shiga

A keep 33 m tall, the first timber high-rise of its kind in Japan, stood on this hill for only a few years: Nobunaga began the castle in 1576, and it burned in 1582, soon after his death. The main approach runs straight uphill for 180 m, 8 m wide, with Buddhist stone figures used as building stone along the way, and at the top of the hill the keep base is a platform about 28 m square where only the foundation stones remain, set 1.2 m apart. The temple Sokenji owns the whole mountain and charges ¥700.

Getting there: About 20 min walk from JR Azuchi Station on the Biwako Line (special rapid trains do not stop there).

52Kannonji Castle観音寺城Shiga

Unlike most medieval castles, the Rokkaku lords' seat on 432 m Mount Kinugasa was faced in stone, its enclosures spreading down the slopes one below another. Walls and stone steps still stand among the trees around the Honmaru, with a pond kept as a water supply for sieges and stone-paved channels laid to carry rain off without undermining the walls. Ishidera, the town at the foot, is where the first free market on record in Japan was held.

Getting there: Omi Railway bus from JR Notogawa Station toward Yokaichi to Kannonji-guchi, then 40 min uphill on foot to Kannon-shoji temple, among the castle's enclosures.

53Nijo Castle二条城Kyoto

You walk through the six buildings of the Ninomaru Palace, all National Treasures, on nightingale floors that chirp underfoot. About 3,600 painted panels survive inside, 1,016 of them Important Cultural Properties, among them the work the young Kano Tan'yu and his studio did for an emperor's visit in 1626, and in the great hall the last shogun's return of power to the emperor was announced in 1867. The five-tier keep was burned by lightning in 1750 and never rebuilt; its base is now a lookout over the Honmaru Palace and the city.

Getting there: Nijojo-mae Station on the Tozai subway line is at the gate. Visitor guide · Our Kyoto guide

54Osaka Castle大阪城Osaka

The keep is a 1931 steel-and-concrete museum with a lift, on the Tokugawa keep base but modelled on a screen painting of Hideyoshi's tower, so it matches neither exactly. Every wall, moat and old building above ground dates from the Tokugawa rebuilding or later, and 13 of those buildings are Important Cultural Properties, from the Otemon gate and Sengan turret to a gunpowder store and a treasury. Hideyoshi's own castle lies under about 6 m of Tokugawa fill, and since 2025 you can go down to one of its rough stone walls in the Toyotomi Stone Wall museum, included in the keep ticket.

Getting there: Osakajokoen Station on the JR Loop Line, or Tanimachi 4-chome on the subway, then about 20 min on foot through the park to the keep. Visitor guide · Our Osaka guide

55Chihaya Castle千早城Osaka

Kusunoki Masashige's last redoubt, on a spur of Mount Kongo with deep valleys on three sides and only a ridge to the summit on the fourth. In 1333 its garrison held the shogunate's besieging army in place for months while revolts spread elsewhere, and Chihaya was still holding out when the Kamakura regime fell. Nothing is built up there beyond Chihaya Shrine, which stands among the old enclosures.

Getting there: Nankai bus from Kawachinagano Station toward Kongozan Ropeway-mae to Kongo-tozanguchi, then 20–30 min uphill on foot.

56Takeda Castle竹田城Hyogo

No building survives, only the stone walls along the top of a 353.7 m hill that stands about 250 m above Takeda town; the castle was abandoned in 1600, when its lord Akamatsu Hirohide was made to kill himself after Sekigahara. On still autumn mornings the valley fills with cloud below it, which is where the name 'castle in the sky' comes from. Since August 2026 a new path runs down past the stone ramparts of the Hanayashiki, an enclosure laid out almost exactly like one at Hideyoshi's Nagoya Castle in Kyushu.

Closed completely from January 4 to the end of February every year (Asago City). The rest of the year entry hours change by season, from 5:00 to 17:00 between June and early December to 10:00 to 15:00 from then until January 3, and entry is stopped in storms, snow or ice.

Getting there: 40 min on foot up either trail from JR Takeda Station (Bantan Line), or the Tenku Bus from the station (daytime, not in December) to the mid-slope stop and 900 m on foot; admission ¥500. Best: Mid-September to early December, when cloud seas are likeliest, above all in late autumn.

57Sasayama Castle篠山城Hyogo

Sasayama's keep base, in the south-east corner of the Honmaru, never carried a keep: when the time came, Ieyasu told the envoy that one would only catch the enemy's eye and was no use to this castle, which he had ordered other lords to build in 1609 to keep watch on the Toyotomi in Osaka and the western daimyo. The visit is the high stone walls, the moats (the outer one about 45 m wide) and the Oshoin, the great hall that burned in 1944 and was rebuilt in timber in 2000 from old plans and photographs.

Getting there: Shinki bus from JR Sasayamaguchi Station (Fukuchiyama Line) toward Sasayama Eigyosho to Nikaimachi, then 5 min on foot; Oshoin admission ¥500.

58Akashi Castle明石城Hyogo

Two of the 12 three-tier turrets left in Japan stand at the south corners of Akashi's Honmaru. The larger, the Hitsujisaru, which tradition says came from Fushimi Castle, stood in for a keep, since none was ever built on the 25 m by 20 m keep base, big enough for five tiers; the Tatsumi was rebuilt after a fire in 1628 or 1631. After the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 the Tatsumi turret was moved aside in one piece while the wall under it was relaid, the first time a castle building in Japan was moved that way, and Hirosaki later drew on the method for its keep.

The turret interiors open only on weekends and holidays, 10:00 to 16:00: the Hitsujisaru from the third Saturday of September to the second Sunday of December, the Tatsumi from March to May, and both close in rain (Akashi Park, September 2026). The park and ramparts are open all year and free.

Getting there: 5 min walk north from JR and Sanyo Akashi Station.

59Himeji Castle姫路城Hyogo

Himeji has four keeps, the main tower and three smaller ones, joined by four corridor turrets; all eight are National Treasures and have stood since the early 1600s. Around them 74 more buildings survive as Important Cultural Properties, 27 turrets, 15 gates and 32 stretches of wall, from the Momoyama-period Hishi gate to the Kesho turret where, tradition says, Princess Sen stopped to redo her make-up. With Horyu-ji it became Japan's first cultural World Heritage Site in 1993.

From July 2026 to about late July 2027, scaffolding on the Ni-yagura and the Mizu gates around the main keep blocks some views and the night lighting, and parts of the route are narrower (Himeji City). The keep itself stays open.

Getting there: 20 min walk from JR Himeji Station, or Shinki bus to Otemon-mae and a 5 min walk; admission ¥2,500, Himeji residents ¥1,000, under 18 free. Our Himeji guide

60Ako Castle赤穂城Hyogo

Asano Naganori's sword attack on Kira in Edo Castle in 1701 cost him his life and his family this castle, which his chief retainer Oishi Kuranosuke surrendered before leading the 47 ronin's revenge; Oishi Shrine has stood in the grounds since 1912. Finished in 1661 to a plan by the military scholar Kondo Masazumi, it never had a keep, and in the Meiji years it lost its gates, turrets and palace but kept its walls and moats. Since the high school left the Honmaru in 1981, the city has rebuilt its gates and restored the Honmaru garden's great pond; the Ninomaru garden is still being restored.

Getting there: 20 min walk from JR Banshu-Ako Station.

61Takatori Castle高取城Nara

Of Japan's three great mountain castles, Takatori makes you climb the furthest: 390 m from the foot of the mountain to the keep base on its 583 m summit. It once carried two keeps and 27 turrets, all white-plastered, which were sold or left to collapse after 1873; the second gate survives as the main gate of Kojima-dera temple down in the town. Up top are tier after tier of stone wall in the forest, a water moat by the second gate, rare in a mountain castle, and from the Kunimi turret site a view across the Nara basin.

Getting there: About 2 hours on foot from Kintetsu Tsubosakayama Station, or a bus to Tsubosaka-dera (no weekday buses) and about 1 hour on foot.

62Wakayama Castle和歌山城Wakayama

From 1619 this was the seat of the Kishu Tokugawa, one of the three senior branches of the shogun's family and the source of two shoguns. Its connected keep group, rebuilt in 1850 after a lightning fire, burned in the air raid of July 9, 1945, and the city put it back in reinforced concrete in 1958 with the prewar exterior. The two-storey Okaguchi gate of 1621 escaped the bombing and is an Important Cultural Property, and the roofed Ohashi-roka bridge, which slopes across the moat because its two banks stand at different heights, was rebuilt from Edo-period drawings in 2006.

Getting there: Wakayama Bus from JR Wakayama Station (central exit) to Wakayama-jo-mae, 10 min, or 15 min on foot from Nankai Wakayamashi Station. Our Wakayama guide

63Tottori Castle鳥取城Tottori

Hideyoshi starved this castle into surrender in 1581, and because the site runs from that Sengoku fort on the summit of Mount Kyusho down to Edo-period enclosures at the foot, Tottori calls it a museum of castle forms. The turrets and gates were pulled down in the 1870s. Below the Tenkyumaru you find the maki-ishigaki, a ball-shaped retaining wall of about 1807, restored in 2012, that no other Japanese castle has, and the old main approach has been rebuilt, with the Giboshi bridge in 2018 and the two-part Nakanogomon gate, in wood, completed in 2025.

Getting there: Kururi loop bus (green course) from JR Tottori Station to Jinpukaku-Kenritsu-Hakubutsukan, 8 min; at weekends and on holidays the Kirin-jishi loop bus stops at Tottori-jo-ato, 9 min.

64Matsue Castle松江城Shimane

The original 1611 keep, a National Treasure since 2015, is the only building that came through 1875, when the rest of the castle was sold and pulled down. The three Ninomaru turrets were rebuilt in 2000 and 2001, and the great Otemon gate survives only as its excavated foundation stones between rebuilt walls. The moats, joined to Lake Shinji, still hold water, and small covered boats circle them. A roof and wall repair is planned from June 2027 to December 2030.

Getting there: 2 km from JR Matsue Station: about 30 min on foot, or 10 min on the Lake Line loop bus (every 30 min from 9:00) to Kokuho Matsue-jo (Otemae). Visitor guide · Our Matsue guide

65Gassan-Toda Castle月山富田城Shimane

The Amago clan ruled up to eleven provinces from this mountain, and Mori Motonari took it in 1566 only by starving the garrison out. Nothing original stands above the earthworks and stone walls, which spread over 70 hectares of ridges. From the walled residence site halfway up, the steep Nanamagari zigzag climbs to the summit enclosures, and two buildings found by excavation have been rebuilt on the Hana-no-dan terrace just below the residence.

Getting there: Yasugi City's Yellow Bus from JR Yasugi Station to Gassan-iriguchi, 26–34 min; the climb from the foot to the summit enclosure takes about an hour.

66Tsuwano Castle津和野城Shimane

Two castles share the ridge of Mount Reiki, 200 m above Tsuwano: the Yoshimi clan's medieval fort, begun in 1295, and the high stone walls Sakazaki Naomori added after 1601. The three-tier keep burned after a lightning strike in 1686 and was never rebuilt, and the Honmaru's walls, jutting out in three directions, look straight down on the town's red roofs. At the foot of the hill, by the Miyuki bridge, the Babasaki turret of the lords' residence still stands.

Getting there: About 1 hour on foot from JR Tsuwano Station, or 5 min by car to the chairlift, a 5 min ride and 20 min on foot (the lift does not run on weekdays from December to February). Our Yamaguchi guide

67Tsuyama Castle津山城Okayama

Mori Tadamasa, younger brother of Mori Ranmaru, who died with Nobunaga at Honno-ji, took 12 years to finish this castle in 1616, and when it was abandoned in 1873 every building was pulled down. You come for the stone walls, rising about 45 m up the hill, and for the Bitchu turret, the largest in the castle, rebuilt in 2005 with a tatami-floored interior like a palace hall; the park ticket covers it. The grounds are one of Japan's 100 best cherry-blossom spots.

A 12–13 m stone wall under the site of the Nagae turret, at the south-west corner of the Ninomaru, collapsed in a downpour on July 15, 2024. Tsuyama City began clearing the fallen stones in September 2025 before rebuilding the wall, has given no finish date, and keeps parts of the grounds closed meanwhile.

Getting there: 15 min walk (1.1 km) from JR Tsuyama Station to the ticket gate. Best: Late March to early April, during the Tsuyama Sakura Festival, when the cherries are lit at night.

68Bitchu-Matsuyama Castle備中松山城Okayama

The only original keep on a true mountaintop, at 430 m on Mount Gagyu. It survives with the two-tier turret behind it and one stretch of earthen wall, all from the rebuilding of 1681–83; the Honmaru's gates, two turrets and earthen walls were rebuilt in 1997, with that surviving wall as the model. Below them the stone walls climb the mountain in tiers, some stacked straight onto the bedrock, and the ridge beyond holds the ruins of older forts going back to 1240.

Getting there: Taxi or shared taxi (¥1,000, book the day before) from JR Bitchu-Takahashi Station to Fuigo-toge, then a steep 20 min, 700 m walk. On shuttle-bus days drivers park at Shiromi-bashi Park and ride up. Best: Late October to early December, for the best odds of a dawn cloud sea. Visitor guide · Our Okayama guide

69Kinojo Castle鬼ノ城Okayama

Excavation dates the 2.8 km of rammed-earth and stone wall ringing the top of 397 m Mount Kinojo to the late 7th century, yet no chronicle mentions the fort. Local legend fills the gap: this was the lair of Ura, the ogre defeated by Prince Kibitsuhiko in the story Okayama ties to Momotaro. The west gate and a corner tower have been rebuilt, and the visitor centre below them is free.

Getting there: 20 min by taxi from JR Soja Station to the visitor centre, a short walk below the west gate.

70Okayama Castle岡山城Okayama

Black-lacquered boards on the keep Ukita Hideie finished in 1597 gave Okayama its nickname, U-jo, Crow Castle. The keep survived the Meiji demolitions only to burn in the 1945 air raid; the concrete copy of 1966 got a new museum inside in 2022. The real survivor is the Tsukimi turret of the 1620s, two storeys from outside and three from the courtyard, an Important Cultural Property along with a second turret in the old western enclosure. Korakuen garden is across the river.

Getting there: Tram from JR Okayama Station to Shiroshita, 5 min, then 10 min on foot. Our Okayama guide

71Fukuyama Castle福山城Hiroshima

Few new castles were allowed after the one-castle-per-province order of 1615, but the shogunate let Mizuno Katsunari build this one in 1620–22 to watch over the west. The keep burned in the air raid of August 8, 1945; works in 2020–22 gave the 1966 concrete rebuild back the iron plating that once armoured its north face, a feature no other keep had. The Fushimi turret, brought from Fushimi Castle and carrying an inscription that says so, and the iron-strapped Sujigane gate were spared in 1945 and are Important Cultural Properties.

Getting there: 5 min walk from the north exit of JR Fukuyama Station.

72Koriyama Castle郡山城Hiroshima

More than 300 enclosures cut into twelve ridges make up the castle Mori Motonari spread over this whole mountain, 190 m above Yoshida; it held against an Amago army in 1540–41, and the Mori left it for Hiroshima in 1591. Only terraces, stone-lined enclosures and a dry well remain. Motonari's grave is on the slope, beside a 1931 monument to Hyakuman Isshin, the motto that legend says he had carved on a foundation stone and buried in the walls in place of a human sacrifice.

Getting there: Bus from Hiroshima Bus Center toward Yoshida, about 1 hr 40 min to Akitakata-shiyakusho-mae, then 5 min on foot to the history museum at the foot of the castle.

73Hiroshima Castle広島城Hiroshima

Mori Terumoto's five-tier keep stood until August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb, exploding less than a kilometre away, brought it down. Every castle building you see is postwar. The keep is a 1958 concrete copy of the old exterior, and the Ninomaru's main gate and three turrets were rebuilt in wood by 1994 from prewar photographs and survey drawings. The inner moat and the stone walls are what remains of the original.

The keep closed on March 22, 2026, after about 68 years, because its concrete and fittings had deteriorated; you can still see it from outside. The rebuilt Ninomaru (free) and the Sannomaru area stay open, and Hiroshima City has not yet decided whether to rebuild the keep in wood.

Getting there: Tram (line 1, 2 or 6) from JR Hiroshima Station to Kamiyacho-higashi, then 15 min on foot; the Atomic Bomb Dome is 18 min away on foot. Visitor guide · Our Hiroshima guide

74Iwakuni Castle岩国城Yamaguchi

Iwakuni's first keep lasted seven years: Kikkawa Hiroie built it in 1608 on a ridge 200 m up, with the Nishiki River as its outer moat, and the one-castle-per-province order had it pulled down in 1615. The concrete keep of 1962 stands about 50 m east of the original, moved to a spot with a view over the town, and the old keep base beside it has been repaired using the stone-laying methods of its day.

The ropeway and the keep close together for inspections: all day on October 29 and November 26, 2026, and for the ropeway's annual overhaul, which ran from January 13 to February 17 in 2026.

Getting there: Ropeway (3 min, every 15 min) from Kikko Park, across the Kintaikyo bridge, then 300 m on foot. Our Hiroshima guide

75Hagi Castle萩城Yamaguchi

After Sekigahara cut the Mori down to two provinces, Mori Terumoto built his new seat here in 1604, a lowland castle at the foot of Mount Shizuki with a last-stand enclosure on its 145 m summit. The five-tier keep and every other building were pulled down in 1874, and the keep base, walls and moat that remain are part of the Meiji Industrial Revolution World Heritage listing, which counts the bare ruin as a sign of the feudal order's end; the Horiuchi samurai quarter outside the moat is a national preservation district. A 730 m trail climbs to the summit walls in about 20 minutes.

Getting there: Hagi's Maaru loop bus (west route) to Hagi-jo-ato Shizuki-koen-iriguchi, then 5 min on foot. Our Yamaguchi guide

76Tokushima Castle徳島城Tokushima

Every stone wall here is laid in Awa's green schist, the aoishi, which gives the ruin a colour of its own. Hachisuka Iemasa built the castle in 1585–86 on a 61 m hill; its buildings came down in 1875, and the one gate left, the Washi-no-mon, burned in the 1945 air raid and was rebuilt in 1989. From the lords' own time survives the palace garden at the foot of the hill, a dry garden and a pond garden laid out by the warrior and tea master Ueda Soko, a National Place of Scenic Beauty since 1941.

Getting there: 10 min walk from JR Tokushima Station. Our Tokushima guide

77Takamatsu Castle高松城Kagawa

Takamatsu's moats are pure seawater, fed from the Inland Sea through a sluice and rising and falling with the tide, and red sea bream swim in the inner moat; ¥100 buys a capsule of floating feed, and from March to November a small Japanese boat takes visitors round. The Tsukimi turret with its water gate and connecting turret, and the Ushitora turret, are original Important Cultural Properties; the Tsukimi turret opens on Sundays. The Sakura gate, lost in the 1945 air raid, was rebuilt in 2022.

Getting there: 3 min walk from JR Takamatsu Station. Our Takamatsu guide

78Marugame Castle丸亀城Kagawa

The keep survives with the two Ote gates of about 1670, both Important Cultural Properties, and the front gate and guardhouse of the lords' palace at the foot of the hill; the turrets were pulled down in 1876–77. The walls are the draw: four tiers climbing 60 m from the moat to the summit, the greatest total height of any castle in Japan.

Part of the southwest walls collapsed in 2018, and Marugame City's target for finishing the rebuild is the end of March 2031 (revised from March 2028 in June 2025). The keep, the Ote gates and the rest of the grounds stay open.

Getting there: 15 min walk from JR Marugame Station (south exit), then about 20 min on foot from the Otemon gate up to the keep. Visitor guide

79Imabari Castle今治城Ehime

Todo Takatora began this castle on the shore in 1602, with seawater moats and, inside the walls, one of the largest castle harbours in Japan, so ships could sail straight in; the sea still flows in and out of the inner moat, and sea fish swim in it. The keep is a 1980 concrete tower on the site of a corner turret, a mock keep rather than a copy of anything that stood here. The Kurogane gate and its long tamon turrets, rebuilt in 2007 as faithfully as the records allow, are the buildings worth going inside.

Getting there: Setouchi Bus from JR Imabari Station to Imabari-jo-mae, 9 min.

80Yuzuki Castle湯築城Ehime

For about 250 years the Kono clan, lords of Iyo, ruled from this low hill, until they handed it to Hideyoshi's army in 1585. It never had stone walls or a keep: its defences are two moats and two earth ramparts, the outer ring added around 1535. Digs after the old zoo here closed in 1987 uncovered the retainers' quarter, and two samurai houses and a stretch of earthen wall have been rebuilt on the excavated sites; the park and its small museum are free.

Getting there: Tram from JR Matsuyama Station to Dogo-koen, 20 min; the park is beside the stop, and Dogo Onsen Honkan is 500 m further north. Our Matsuyama guide

81Matsuyama Castle松山城Ehime

Twenty-one buildings survive, the 1854 keep among them, along with the Nohara turret, the only two-storey lookout-type turret left in Japan, and gates such as the doorless Tonashimon. Most of what burned in 1933, 1945 and 1949 has been rebuilt in timber since 1968, and of the two climbing walls that run down the hill to the Ninomaru, the southern one survives almost whole.

Getting there: Tram from JR Matsuyama Station to Okaido (13 min), 5 min on foot to Shinonome-guchi station, then the ropeway or chairlift and a 10 min walk; allow about 30 min from the ropeway station to the keep's ticket window. Visitor guide · Our Matsuyama guide

82Ozu Castle大洲城Ehime

Few keeps were as well recorded as Ozu's: Meiji photographs show the outside, and a wooden frame model kept by the Nakano family, the domain's master carpenters, shows how it was put together, so in 2004 the four-tier keep could be reconstructed faithfully in timber. Four Edo turrets survive as Important Cultural Properties, two joined to the keep and two standing apart, the Owata by the river and the Sannomaru south-corner turret of 1766, the oldest building left. Since July 2020 the keep has also been let for overnight stays, the first castle in Japan to do so.

Getting there: 30 min on foot from JR Iyo-Ozu Station, or 10 min on the Gururin Ozu loop bus to Ozujo-mae and 5 min on foot.

83Uwajima Castle宇和島城Ehime

The original keep of about 1666 survives, with the Noboritachimon, the last of seven gates on the southern path and possibly from Todo Takatora's building of 1596–1601, and stone walls dating from 1601 to the 1850s. The five-sided moats were filled in 1900–1913 and the Otemon burned in an air raid in 1945; a chief retainer's gatehouse and the domain's 1845 armoury were moved to the castle in 1952 and 1966.

A slope collapse closed the southern path from the Noboritachimon gate on July 4, 2026; it reopened as far as the Shiroyama Kyodokan on August 1, but its branch to the children's park is still closed. The north gatehouse is under repair until March 2027, and walkers are routed round it (Uwajima City).

Getting there: 15 min walk (1 km) from JR Uwajima Station to the north gate, about 35 min to the keep. Visitor guide

84Kochi Castle高知城Kochi

Nowhere else does every building of the main enclosure survive: the keep (finished in 1749) with the Kaitokukan palace joined to it, the Nando-gura storehouse, the Tsumemon, Rokamon and Kurogane-mon gates, two single-storey turrets and four loopholed walls, and below them the Otemon main gate and its two walls, fifteen Important Cultural Properties in all. Most of the stone walls are rough fieldstone, the finest dressed stonework is in the Sannomaru, and a stretch of the inner moat still runs from the Otemon round the south foot of the hill.

Termite repairs on the Tsumemon and Rokamon gates run from August 17 to November 2, 2026 (planned), with part of the Umenodan and part of the Rokamon's upper floor closed off; the way into the main enclosure, the keep and the Kaitokukan palace stay open (Kochi Castle management office).

Getting there: Tram from JR Kochi Station to Kochijo-mae, changing at Harimayabashi (about 15 min), then 3 min on foot to the Otemon gate and 158 stone steps up; the station is about 25 min away on foot. Visitor guide · Our Kochi guide

85Fukuoka Castle福岡城Fukuoka

Kuroda Nagamasa built it over seven years from 1601, and whether it ever had a keep is still an open question. A map of 1646 shows none, but a document found in December 2024 says one was built. The Tamon turret, an Important Cultural Property, is the only turret still standing where it stood in the Edo period, and the Shiomi turret, a temple's Buddha hall from 1908, was rebuilt on its old corner in 2025 with the timbers that survived. The grounds also hold the Korokan, where envoys from China and Korea were lodged from the 7th century, the only one of Japan's three ancient state guesthouses whose site has been found.

The keep base, the castle's lookout over the city, is closed for excavation from May 26 to the end of December 2026 (planned), and the Korokan exhibition hall closes for renovation from October 1, 2026 to late March 2027 (Fukuoka City).

Getting there: Subway Kuko Line to Akasaka (exit 2), then 10 min on foot; from Ohorikoen (exit 5) it is 10 min to the Sannomaru Square visitor centre. Our Fukuoka guide

86Ono Castle大野城Fukuoka

Two years after the defeat at Baekgang in 663, the court, helped by nobles who had fled Baekje, built one of Japan's largest ancient mountain forts on the hill behind its Dazaifu government seat. About 8 km of earth ramparts and stone walls ring the top of 410 m Mount Shioji, enclosing the foundation stones of some 70 buildings, most of them thought to be rice stores for a siege. Head for the Hyakken wall, about 180 m of solid stonework and the largest on the mountain, and the Zochoten foundation stones.

Getting there: Taxi from Nishitetsu Dazaifu Station up the forest road to the car park at the pass, a few minutes' walk from the Zochoten stones; on foot, 70 min from the station to the prefectural forest centre.

87Hizen-Nagoya Castle名護屋城Saga

Hideyoshi's base for the invasions of Korea, begun in 1591 and, at about 17 hectares, second only to Osaka Castle in its day. Its stone walls were later broken down on purpose and no building survives, but the keep base still looks out to Tsushima on clear early-winter days, and the floor plan of Hideyoshi's palace, the only one of his palaces whose remains have been found, is marked out on the main enclosure. Some 150 daimyo camp sites have been traced in the hills around it, and the free prefectural museum next door tells the story as part of Japan's long exchange with Korea.

Getting there: Showa Bus from Karatsu's Otekuchi bus centre (8 min on foot from JR Karatsu Station) to Nagoyajo-hakubutsukan-iriguchi, then 5 min on foot.

88Yoshinogari吉野ヶ里Saga

Not a castle at all but the largest moated settlement of Japan's Yayoi period, found when the land was surveyed for an industrial park and dug from 1986. Its V-shaped outer moat, up to 6.5 m wide, enclosed about 40 hectares, and watchtowers, pit houses, raised storehouses and palisades stand again directly above the spots where their remains were found. The burial mound of its rulers, which held 14 jar coffins, has an exhibit inside it.

Getting there: 15 min on foot from JR Yoshinogari-koen Station on the Nagasaki Main Line to the east gate. Our Saga guide

89Saga Castle佐賀城Saga

Fire took Saga's keep in 1726 and it was never rebuilt. Two buildings of Nabeshima Naomasa's rebuilding, finished in 1838, survive: the Shachi gate and its turret, still marked by bullets from the Saga Rebellion of 1874, and Naomasa's own office, moved back into the wing of the palace that was reconstructed in timber on its original spot in 2004. That wing is now a free museum (a donation is asked), and its audience hall, four rooms and a corridor together, spans 320 tatami mats.

Getting there: 25 min on foot from JR Saga Station, or 10 min by taxi; city buses from the station bus centre stop at Hakubutsukan-mae, beside the museum. Our Saga guide

90Hirado Castle平戸城Nagasaki

Matsura Shigenobu burned his own newly finished castle here in 1613, and his family ruled from a mansion below for about a century before rebuilding it in 1704–18. Of that castle only the North Koguchi gate and the Tanuki turret still stand; the five-floor concrete keep above the harbour dates from 1962 and holds a museum of the Matsura lords and the port's trade with Europe. The Kaiju turret is let for overnight stays, the first permanent castle lodging at any of the 100 Fine Castles.

Getting there: Saihi Bus from Sasebo to Hirado Shiyakusho-mae (1 h 30 min), then 10 min on foot.

91Shimabara Castle島原城Nagasaki

For a domain of just 40,000 koku, Matsukura Shigemasa spent about seven years from 1618 on a five-tier keep, 16 turrets round the inner enclosures and 31 more along the outer walls. Under his son the people were ruled so harshly that the Shimabara Rebellion broke out in 1637. Only the walls and moats outlasted the Meiji sell-off, and the keep is a 1964 concrete reconstruction based on domain records and a painting of the castle from the 1920s. Its ground floor holds a nationally known collection on the hidden Christians, including images of Mary disguised as other figures.

Getting there: Shimabara Railway from Isahaya to Shimabara (about 1 h 12 min), then 11 min on foot. Our Nagasaki guide

92Kumamoto Castle熊本城Kumamoto

Kumamoto's musha-gaeshi walls, the work of Kato Kiyomasa, start gently at the foot and curve up to near-vertical at the top, and in 1877 they kept Saigo Takamori's army out for more than 50 days, though the keep and palace had burned just before the fighting began. Thirteen Edo buildings are Important Cultural Properties, led by the Uto turret, the only multi-storey turret left as it was built, but the 2016 earthquakes damaged every one of them and several have been taken down for rebuilding. The keep is a 1960 concrete copy of the outside, repaired after the earthquakes.

The keep has been open inside since June 28, 2021, reached by a temporary raised walkway over the earthquake damage; the city's restoration plan runs to fiscal 2052, and the Uto turret, taken down in 2022, is due back in 2032. The castle closed after the Kumamoto earthquake of July 28, 2026 and is open normally again, with traffic near Kato Shrine still restricted (Kumamoto City, September 18, 2026).

Getting there: Tram from JR Kumamoto Station to Kumamotojo-Shiyakusho-mae (15–18 min), then 5 min on foot to the castle's Gyoko-zaka slope. Our Kumamoto guide

93Hitoyoshi Castle人吉城Kumamoto

The Sagara held this site where the Mune River meets the Kuma from 1198 to 1871, and rebuilt their hill fort in stone from 1598. Only the walls came through the sell-off of the 1870s; the corner turret, long wall, tamon turret and Horiai gate are reconstructions from old drawings, photographs and excavation. Look for the hane-dashi walls, whose top course juts out to stop climbers. Inside the history museum, reopened in July 2025 after the 2020 flood, is the stone-lined cellar of a senior retainer's house, the only one of its kind found in Japan.

Our Kumamoto guide

94Funai Castle大分府内城Oita

On flat ground where the Oita River met the sea, Fukuhara Naotaka began the castle in 1597 and Takenaka Shigetoshi gave it a four-tier keep in 1602; the keep burned in the great fire of 1743 and was never rebuilt. Two Edo turrets survive, the Hitojichi and the Shumon, rebuilt in 1861 and 1859; the Shumon looks single-storey from outside the walls and two-storey from within. The main gate is a 1966 rebuild after the 1945 air raid, and the covered corridor bridge to the Yamazato enclosure was reconstructed in 1995, modelled on one in old drawings.

Getting there: 15 min on foot from JR Oita Station. Our Oita guide

95Oka Castle岡城Oita

Stone walls rise straight from the cliff edges of a tongue of volcanic rock 325 m above sea level, between the gorges of the Inaba and Shirataki rivers, and they are all that is left; every building was pulled down in 1874. Shiga Chikatsugu, aged 18, held the earlier earthen fort against three Shimazu attacks in 1586, and the Nakagawa lords rebuilt it in stone from 1594. Look for the arched "kamaboko" stones on the approach, found at no other castle, and the statue of Taki Rentaro, who played among these ruins as a boy and had them in mind when he composed "Kojo no Tsuki" (The Moon over the Ruined Castle).

Getting there: Limited express from Oita to Bungo-Taketa (59–68 min), then 30 min on foot or 5 min by taxi.

96Obi Castle飫肥城Miyazaki

Obi is thirteen enclosures cut apart by dry moats across about 750 m of volcanic shirasu plateau, the characteristic layout of southern Kyushu's medieval castles; the Ito lords held it from 1587 until the Meiji era. Earthquakes from 1662 onward cracked the old main enclosure, now a grove of 140-year-old cedars over moss, and its replacement, finished in 1693, is today the playground of Obi Elementary School. Walls and moats are what survive; the main gate is a 1978 rebuild, and the samurai streets outside became Kyushu's first national preservation district in 1977.

Getting there: 15 min on foot from JR Obi Station on the Nichinan Line.

97Kagoshima Castle鹿児島城Kagoshima

Kagoshima never had a keep: from about 1601 the Shimazu lords lived in a walled residence at the foot of Shiroyama, the wooded hill behind it that served as the mountain fort. The Goromon, gate to the main enclosure, burned in 1873 and was rebuilt in 2020 as the largest castle gate in Japan; the moats, walls and stone bridge around it are original, and the Reimeikan museum stands inside. Nearby, the stone walls of Saigo Takamori's private academy, set up on the castle's old stables site, are still pitted with bullets from the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

Getting there: Tram to Shiyakusho-mae, then 10 min on foot, or the Kagoshima City View bus to Satsuma-gishihi-mae. Our Kagoshima guide

98Nakijin Castle今帰仁城Okinawa

From here the Hokuzan kings ruled northern Okinawa and traded with China until Sho Hashi of Chuzan destroyed them in 1416; the wardens Chuzan sent in their place stayed until 1665, and the ruin has been a place of worship ever since. Like Nakagusuku and Shuri, it is one of the Ryukyu World Heritage sites. Its limestone walls, highest around the Ushimi enclosure, follow the ridge in long, gentle curves that recall the Great Wall of China, and from the Uuchibaru enclosure the view runs out to the sea.

Getting there: Yanbaru Express bus from Naha Airport to Nakijin-joseki-iriguchi (about 2 h 30 min), then 15 min on foot. Best: Mid-January to early February, when the kanhizakura cherries flower.

99Nakagusuku Castle中城城Okinawa

Okinawa's best-preserved gusuku, lightly touched by the war: six enclosures on a limestone ridge, with the Pacific on one side and the East China Sea on the other. Earlier lords built the core over several generations from the late 14th century, and Gosamaru, sent here around 1440, added the north and third enclosures, so his interlocking polygonal stonework stands beside their rough fieldstone and squared blocks. In 1853 Commodore Perry's survey party wrote that the stones had been fitted so carefully that no mortar or cement was used.

Getting there: Best by car (Kitanakagusuku IC); by bus, Naha Bus Terminal to AEON Mall Okinawa Rycom, then the mobi on-demand shuttle, booked in its app.

100Shuri Castle首里城Okinawa

The palace of the Ryukyu kings, destroyed in the 1945 battle for Okinawa, rebuilt in vermilion in 1992, and burned again on October 31, 2019, when a fire that started inside the main hall destroyed it and eight other buildings. Every building here is a reconstruction; what the World Heritage listing protects is the ground itself, including the stone platforms of at least seven earlier main halls, together with the Sonohyan-utaki stone gate beside the Shureimon.

The rebuilt main hall opens at noon on November 23, 2026, the day after its completion ceremony: the whole park is closed on November 22, and on the 23rd the free zone opens at 11:15 and the paid zone at noon. From then on the main hall can only be entered with a timed ticket, sold online in advance (any same-day slots left are also sold at the Kofukumon window), and paid-zone admission rises to ¥1,000 for adults (Shurijo Castle Park notices of June 4, July 31, September 18 and September 28, 2026). The north and south halls are to be rebuilt next.

Getting there: Yui Rail monorail from Naha Airport to Shuri (27 min), then 15 min on foot to the Shureimon. Our Naha guide