, also known as and , is a

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, suc ...

located in Shimabara, Hizen Province (present day

Nagasaki prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,314,078 (1 June 2020) and has a geographic area of 4,130 km2 (1,594 sq mi). Nagasaki Prefecture borders Saga Prefecture to the northeast. N ...

). This five-story white building stands in stark contrast to the black Kumamoto Castle in neighboring

Kumamoto Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Kumamoto Prefecture has a population of 1,748,134 () and has a geographic area of . Kumamoto Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the north, Ōita Prefecture to the northeast, Miyaza ...

Description

Shimabara Castle is a , located between Ariake Bay and

Mount Unzen is an active volcanic group of several overlapping stratovolcanoes, near the city of Shimabara, Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island. In 1792, the collapse of one of its several lava domes triggered a megatsunam ...

. The outer

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

s, some 15 meters deep and between 30–50 meters wide, extended 360 meters east-west and 1260 meters north-south, with the enclosed area divided into three baileys. The walls extended for 3900 meters and had 16 '' yagura'' of various sizes at key points. The main ''donjon'' had five stories, and a height of 33 meters, and was connected to two secondary keeps, each with three stories. In terms of scale, it was far larger than normal for a ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' with revenues of only 40,000 '' koku'' .

History

The

Arima clan The is a Japanese samurai family.Edmund Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Arima," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', pp. 2-3 DF 6-7 of 80/nowiki> retrieved 2013-5- ...

, who were ''

Kirishitan The Japanese term , from Portuguese ''cristão'' (cf. Kristang), meaning "Christian", referred to Catholic Christians in Japanese and is used in Japanese texts as a historiographic term for Catholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries. M ...

daimyō'', ruled over Shimabara Domain in the late

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by ...

from Hinoe Castle and Hara Castle. After the start of the national isolation policy, the

Tokugawa Bakufu The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

banned Christianity from 1614 and replaced Arima Naozumi with

Matsukura Shigemasa was a Japanese feudal lord of the late Sengoku and early Edo periods. He held the title of ''Bingo no Kami'' and the Imperial court rank of junior 5th, lower grade (''ju-go i no ge''). Though he began as a retainer of Tsutsui Sadatsugu of Yamato ...

. Matsukura, who strictly enforced the prohibition against Christianity with mass executions, also severely raised taxes to pay for the construction of his new Shimabara Castle from 1618-1624. This oppression of the peasants was a major factor leading to the

Shimabara Rebellion The , also known as the or , was an uprising that occurred in the Shimabara Domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638. Matsukura Katsuie, the '' daimyō'' of the Shimabara Domain, enforced unpopular p ...

. The castle came under siege during the Shimabara Rebellion, but was not damaged. It subsequently served as the seat of the Kōriki clan, who ruled Shimabara from 1638–1668,

Matsudaira clan The was a Japanese samurai clan that descended from the Minamoto clan. It originated in and took its name from Matsudaira village, in Mikawa Province (modern-day Aichi Prefecture). During the Sengoku period, the chieftain of the main line of t ...

(1669–1747, 1774–1871) and Toda clan (1747–1774) The Matsudaira ''daimyō'' remained in residence at Shimabara Castle until 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 practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were r ...

of 1868. It was the seat of the local government until 1871, when the former Shimabara Domain was merged into the new

. The keep was pulled down in 1876, as were most of the supporting structures. The third bailey became a school grounds, and most of the inner bailey was given over to farmland. Today, only the moat and stone walls remain from the original structure. A number of the ''yagura'' were restored in 1960 and 1972, and the keep was rebuilt in 1964 in reinforced concrete as a city museum containing exhibits of the ''Kirishitan'' culture, Shimabara Rebellion and feudal period. In 1980, a memorial museum was opened in honor of Seibo Kitamura, a noted sculptor. In 2006, the Shimabara Castle was listed one of the

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

by the Japan Castle Foundation.

References

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External links

Shimabara Castle home page
{{Authority control Castles in Nagasaki Prefecture Museums in Nagasaki Prefecture History museums in Japan 100 Fine Castles of Japan