was an

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

flatland-style

Japanese castle are fortresses constructed primarily of wood and stone. They evolved from the wooden stockades of earlier centuries and came into their best-known form in the 16th century. Castles in Japan were built to guard important or strategic sites, such a ...

located in the city of

Kagoshima , is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 583,966 in 285,992 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Etymology While the ...

Kagoshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,527,019 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 9,187 Square kilometre, km2 (3,547 Square m ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Its ruins have been protected as a National Historic Site since 2023. Kagoshima Castle was listed as one of

Japan's Top 100 Castles The Japanese castle, castles in were chosen based on their significance in culture, history, and in their regions by the in 2006. In 2017, the Japanese Castle Association created an additional finest 100 castles list as Continued Top 100 Japane ...

by the Japan Castle Foundation in 2006.Japan Castle Foundation
/ref>). It is more popular known in Kagoshima as

Overview

Kagoshima Castle was built by

Shimazu Tadatsune was a '' tozama daimyō'' of Satsuma, the first to hold it as a formal fief ('' han'') under the Tokugawa shogunate, and the first Japanese to rule over the Ryūkyū Kingdom. As lord of Satsuma, he was among the most powerful lords in Japan at ...

following the defeat of the Shimazu clan along with the Western Army at the 1600

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

. His father

Shimazu Yoshihiro was the second son of Shimazu Takahisa and the younger brother of Shimazu Yoshihisa. Traditionally believed to be the 17th head of the Shimazu clan, he was a skilled general during the Sengoku period who greatly contributed to the unificatio ...

had famously led a fighting retreat off of the battlefield and escaped with the bulk of his army intact back to

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

. The victorious Tokugawa forces landed in Kyushu to subdue the remnants of the forces loyal to

Ishida Mitsunari was a Japanese samurai and military commander of the late Sengoku period of Japan. He is probably best remembered as the commander of the Western army in the Battle of Sekigahara following the Azuchi–Momoyama period of the 16th century. He ...

and

Toyotomi Hideyori was the son and designated successor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the general who united all of Japan toward the end of the Sengoku period. His mother, Yodo-dono, was the niece of Oda Nobunaga. Early life Born in 1593, he was Hideyoshi's sec ...

, but reached a peace agreement with the Shimazu, who agreed to reduce their territory to the provinces of

Satsuma Satsuma may refer to: * Satsuma (fruit), a citrus fruit * ''Satsuma'' (gastropod), a genus of land snails Places Japan * Satsuma, Kagoshima, a Japanese town * Satsuma District, Kagoshima, a district in Kagoshima Prefecture * Satsuma Domain, a ...

and Ōsumi. The previous center of Satsuma and the main stronghold of the Shimazu clan had been in the area of present-day Satsumasendai and Izumi, which were nearer to provincial border with

Higo Province was an old province of Japan in the area that is today Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. It was sometimes called , with Hizen Province. Higo bordered on Chikugo, Bungo, Hyūga, Ōsumi, and Satsuma Provinces. History The cas ...

. Shimazu Tadatsune therefore decided to relocate his stronghold further south, which was further away from potential invasion by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

and protected by mountainous terrain. The actual site was selected by

geomancy Geomancy, a compound of Greek roots denoting "earth divination", was originally used to mean methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings on the ground, or the patterns formed by soil, rock (geology), rocks, or sand. Its d ...

and was protected by the Hegigawa River to the east, Satsuma Kaidō to the west, the Kinko Bay to the south, and

Mount Shiroyama is a mountain located in Motegi, Tochigi, Motegi, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. From the Motegi train station it is a thirty-minute walk northeast. Seasonal festivals are held on its top. In autumn the colors of its tree leaves are very beautiful ...

to the north. He constructed a "yakata-zukuri" style castle, which was more of a large fortified residence than a Japanese castle. It consisted of a main citadel in the north and a secondary citadel to the south, protected by a moats and low walls, and did not have a ''

tenshu is an architectural typology found in Japanese castle, Japanese castle complexes. They are easily identifiable as the highest tower within the castle. Common translations of ''tenshu'' include keep, main keep, or ''donjon''. ''Tenshu'' are cha ...

'' or high stone walls. Mount Shiroyama to the rear of the castle was regarded as the

redoubt A redoubt (historically redout) is a Fortification, fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on Earthworks (engineering), earthworks, although some are constructed of ston ...

which could be used in case of siege; however, after Tadatsune's death, the mountain was regarded as a sacred area and was placed off-limits. Tadatsune's father, Shimazu Yoshihiro, was adamantly against the construction of Kagoshima Castle due to its indefensible design and its proximity to the coast; however, politically the military weakness of the castle was intended as a political statement verifying the Shimazu clan's submission to the Tokugawa shogunate. The castle was completed in 1604. Kagoshima Castle was never used in actual battle until the

Bakumatsu period were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunat ...

, when it came under attack by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

during the Anglo-Satsuma War of 1863. Shimazu Yoshihiro's concerns about its proximity the coast were proven accurate; however, as the castle was so inconspicuous, the British mistook a nearby Buddhist temple for a castle tower and fired on it instead. Following the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, the fledgling

Imperial Japanese Army The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...

garrisoned the castle. In 1873, the main citadel burned down, including the main gate of the castle. In 1877 the second citadel likewise burned down during the

Satsuma Rebellion The Satsuma Rebellion, also known as the , was a revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government of the Empire of Japan, nine years into the Meiji era. Its name comes from the Satsuma Domain, which had been influential in ...

. The Kagoshima Prefectural Medical School and its affiliated hospital were established on the site of the second citadel in 1882, continuing under various names until it was relocated in 1974. The site is now the location of the Kagoshima Prefectural Library, Kagoshima City Museum of Art, and Kagoshima Prefectural Museum. The main citadel was used by the Kagoshima Seventh High School Zoshikan from 1901 until its destruction in an air raid in 1945. Afterwards, the site became the Faculty of Letters and Sciences of

University until 1957, when it was replaced by the National Kagoshima University School of Medicine until 1974. It is now Reimeikan, Kagoshima Prefectural Center for Historical Material, which opened in 1984. A reconstruction of the Otemon main gate of the castle based on surviving documents and photographs was completed in 2020.

Literature

* *

External links

Prefecture site

References

{{100 Fine Castles of Japan Castles in Kagoshima Prefecture Historic Sites of Japan Ruined castles in Japan Satsuma Province Kagoshima Shimazu clan

Overview

See also

Literature

External links

References