Edo Castle: The Tokugawa Shogunate’s Seat of Government in Tokyo
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Japanese, Tokugawa
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page35 sections
History
Edo Castle in Japan is a large hirayama-style castle, meaning a fortified complex built across a hill and surrounding low ground, first constructed in 1457 by Ota Dokan in what is now Tokyo. Its development from a regional stronghold into the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate made it the political center of Japan for more than two centuries.
Origins and fifteenth-century rule
The castle stood in the Sakurada district on the eastern edge of the Kojimachi Plateau in Musashi Province, a historical province corresponding broadly to modern Tokyo and nearby parts of the Kanto region. Ota Dokan was a retainer of the Ogigayatsu Uesugi family. His fortress replaced earlier activity associated with the Edo clan, whose warrior ancestor Edo Shigetsugu established a residence in the area around the end of the Heian or the beginning of the Kamakura period.
The Edo clan declined and left the area during conflicts in the Kanto region during the fifteenth century. Control of the castle then passed to the Uesugi family. Uesugi Tomoyoshi used it as a retirement residence, before the fortress came under the control of Hojo Ujitsuna and the Later Hojo clan in 1524. The Hojo-controlled castle surrendered during Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s 1590 campaign against Odawara.
Tokugawa expansion
Tokugawa Ieyasu entered Edo in 1590 after Hideyoshi granted him the eight eastern provinces. At that time, Edo Castle was a modest fortification consisting of several small buildings beside low-lying land and the Hibiya inlet. Ieyasu made it his base, and after he became shogun, Japan’s hereditary military ruler, in 1603, Edo became the administrative center of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Large-scale enlargement began in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, with especially intensive work after 1603. Construction continued under the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, and the third, Tokugawa Iemitsu. The project was completed in 1636 when the outer moat at Sanada Moat was finished. The enlarged castle incorporated the Honmaru, Ninomaru, Sannomaru, Nishinomaru, Nishinomaru-shita, Fukiage, and Kitanomaru compounds.
The work formed part of a nationwide military construction service imposed on daimyo, the powerful territorial lords of early modern Japan. Daimyo supplied stone, money, transport, or labor, while the system also helped the shogunate control their power. In 1606, responsibilities for outer-wall construction were assigned to many lords, including Hosokawa Tadaoki, Maeda Toshinaga, Ikeda Terumasa, Kato Kiyomasa, Fukushima Masanori, Asano Yoshinaga, Kuroda Nagamasa, Kato Yoshiaki, Todo Takatora, and Mori Hidenari. Kuroda Nagamasa built the keep foundation, while other daimyo worked on the stone walls, Honmaru, and surrounding castle area.
In 1607, Todo Takatora designed further work on the keep foundation and walls. Daimyo from the Kanto, Ou, and Shinetsu regions carried out additional moat and stonework, including Date Masamune, Uesugi Kagekatsu, Gamo Hideyuki, Satake Yoshinobu, Hori Hidesharu, Mizoguchi Hidekatsu, and Murakami Yoshiaki. The first Tokugawa-period keep was completed that year.
Further projects continued over the following decades. The Nishinomaru and Fukiage moats were worked on in 1611, followed by reclamation, canal, bridge-base, and town-planning works in 1612. Stone walls were repaired in 1614. Momijiyama Toshogu Shrine and the cutting of the Kanda River were established in 1618, and the stretch between Inner Sakurada Gate and Shimizu Gate was repaired in 1620. The Honmaru, keep foundation, and palaces were expanded or rebuilt in 1622, and a second keep was completed in 1623. Work on the Honmaru, Nishinomaru, outer moat, and gates continued from 1628, the Ninomaru was expanded in 1635, and the outer defenses between Iidabashi, Yotsuya, Akasaka, and Tameike were rebuilt in 1636. The final major nationwide construction works, including enlargement of the Kanda River at Ochanomizu, began in 1660.
The expansion also reshaped the surrounding landscape. Kanda Mountain was cut down, much of the Hibiya inlet was reclaimed, and new canals and town blocks were created. The Nihonbashi bridge was first built during this transformation. Stone came mainly from western Sagami and the Izu Peninsula, travelled by sea, and was used extensively for the castle’s walls and foundations.
Government and court life
During the Edo period, conventionally dated from 1603 to 1867, Edo Castle served as the seat of the Tokugawa government and the residence of fifteen shoguns. The shogun conducted government within the castle, while the Great Interior housed the women of the shogun’s family and household. Senior officials, including elders, junior elders, inspectors, magistrates, pages, and guards, worked in or around the compounds.
Approximately 5,000 men may have been present during the day. The women’s household numbered an estimated 600 to 700 in earlier periods and about 1,000 during the late shogunate. The castle’s location supported both political administration and movement through the region. It stood near the southern end of the Kanto Plain and the northern end of Tokyo Bay, beside routes connecting inland rivers, the Sumida River, Shinagawa, Kamakura, and the open Pacific.
The three collateral Tokugawa houses were also established through residences inside the castle. In 1731, Tokugawa Yoshimune granted his second son a residence inside Tayasu Gate, creating the Tayasu Tokugawa house. In 1740, he granted a residence inside Ichibashi Gate to his fourth son, creating the Hitotsubashi Tokugawa house. In 1758, Tokugawa Ieshige granted a residence inside Shimizu Gate to his second son, creating the Shimizu Tokugawa house.
Disasters and political violence
The castle suffered repeated natural disasters and fires. An earthquake in 1647 damaged many stone walls, including those near Nishinomaru, Nishinomaru-shita, Kojimachi Gate, Kanda Bridge, Gofukibashi, and Kaji-bashi. The Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 destroyed the keep and much of the castle. Although a replacement foundation was built, the keep was never rebuilt.
Later fires destroyed the Ninomaru in 1747, the Honmaru and Great Interior in 1844, the Nishinomaru in 1852, the Honmaru in 1859, the Honmaru, Ninomaru, and Nishinomaru in 1863, and the Ninomaru in 1867. The Ansei earthquake of 1855 caused extensive damage to walls, towers, and gates.
Several violent incidents involving officials and retainers occurred within the castle. In 1628, Toyoshima Nobumitsu killed the elder Inoue Masatsugu in a Nishinomaru corridor before being restrained and killing himself. Inaba Masayasu killed the senior councillor Hotta Masatoshi near the Honmaru official offices in 1684. In 1701, Asano Naganori attacked Kira Yoshihisa in the Great Pine Corridor, an event that led to the episode of the forty-seven ronin. Other attacks occurred in the same corridor in 1725, when Mizuno Tadatsune attacked Mori Moritsugu, and in the Honmaru in 1747, when Itakura Katsumoto mistakenly killed Hosokawa Munetaka. In 1784, Sano Masakoto killed the junior elder Tanuma Okitomo in the Honmaru. In 1823, Matsudaira Geki attacked five colleagues in the Nishinomaru guardhouse, killing four and wounding one.
Transfer to the imperial government
Edo Castle was surrendered to the Meiji government on 11 April 1868 after negotiations between Katsu Kaishu and Saigo Takamori, preceded by Yamaoka Tesshu’s mission to Saigo. The agreement prevented a general attack on Edo and later became known as the “bloodless surrender.”
The castle was renamed Tokyo Castle in October 1868 and Imperial Castle in 1869. Emperor Meiji entered Tokyo and made the former castle an imperial residence. A fire on 5 May 1873 destroyed much of the remaining old castle. The Meiji Palace was built in 1888, mainly in the Nishinomaru area rather than on the former Honmaru palace site.
Modern damage and protection
The site suffered substantial damage during the Second World War and the bombing of Tokyo in 1945. The Ote-mon watari-yagura, a gate tower spanning an entrance, was destroyed on 30 April 1945, and the former Hanzomon was also lost. Ote-mon was reconstructed between 1965 and 1967. Other surviving or reconstructed elements were repaired at different times, including after damage from the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923.
The outer-moat remains became a national Historic Site in 1956, and the wider Edo Castle site became a Special Historic Site in 1960. Sakuradamon, Tayasu-mon, and Shimizu-mon are Important Cultural Properties. Excavations associated with urban redevelopment have revealed buried outer-moat stone walls near Marunouchi and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
The former castle is now incorporated into the Tokyo Imperial Palace complex. Kitanomaru has become Kitanomaru Park, while surviving moats, walls, gates, towers, guardhouses, and reconstructed structures preserve parts of the earlier compound. A model of the Kan’ei-period keep at a scale of 1:30 was displayed in the East Gardens from 2020.
Since 2004, nonprofit and civic organizations have promoted reconstruction of the keep. Their plans have drawn on surviving drawings, screens, models, and architectural records. Government agencies have identified serious historical, legal, conservation, administrative, structural, and seismic obstacles. In 2017, one organization shifted its emphasis from rebuilding the keep alone toward broader restoration of the Honmaru palace and gates, while another continued to advocate reconstruction. A 2019 statement judged rebuilding on the existing foundation to be close to impossible because of international conservation principles and Japanese legal and technical constraints.
Remains
Edo Castle occupied the eastern edge of the Musashino Plateau, where concentric moats and enclosures formed a roughly clockwise spiral. Stone walls concentrated around the Honmaru and parts of the Nishinomaru, while earth ramparts extended through the outer defenses, Nishinomaru, and especially Fukiage. The complete enceinte covered approximately 20.82 square kilometers, with an outer perimeter of about 15.7 kilometers, an east-west extent of roughly 5.45 kilometers, and a north-south extent of roughly 3.82 kilometers. Another historical measurement gives the principal castle a perimeter of about 16 kilometers.
Honmaru and the central defenses
Honmaru compound
The Honmaru was the innermost compound. During the Kan’ei era it covered approximately 33,000 square meters and contained the keep, the main palace, the shogun’s residence, a treasury, defensive walls, eleven towers, fifteen defense houses, and more than twenty gates. Inui-bori and Hirakawa-bori bordered it to the north, Hakucho-bori to the east, and Hasuike-bori and Hamaguri-bori to the west and south. Most of these moats survive, although Hakucho-bori was partly filled after the Meiji period.
Honmaru palace
The Honmaru palace was arranged from south to north as the Great Outer Palace, Middle Interior, and Great Interior. Audience rooms and offices for guards and officials occupied the Great Outer Palace. The Middle Interior served as the shogun’s living and working area, while the Great Interior housed his wife, women attendants, and private household. A copper-plated wall separated the Great Interior from the other sections, with one corridor, later two, connecting them. The palace covered approximately 22,000 tsubo, a traditional area unit, divided into about 11,000 tsubo for the Great Outer Palace, 4,700 for the Middle Interior, and 6,300 for the Great Interior.
Fires repeatedly led to rebuilding of the palace. Major construction or reconstruction took place in 1606, 1622, 1637, 1659, 1845, and 1860. Fires destroyed it in 1639, 1657, 1844, 1859, and 1863. After the 1863 fire, the Honmaru palace was not rebuilt and its functions moved to the Nishinomaru palace. Named spaces included the Great Audience Hall, Great Corridor, White Wood Study, Imperial Mirror Room, poetry room, and several reception and administrative chambers.
Keep foundation
The surviving keep foundation lies in the northern Honmaru. It measures approximately 41 meters from east to west, 45 meters from north to south, and 11 meters high. The keep that stood on it was about 51 meters high and was the tallest castle tower in Japan. Three Tokugawa-period keeps were completed in 1607, 1623, and 1638. Each was a five-story, five-tier tower with a basement, and its ridge-end ornaments and gable boards were covered with gold leaf or gold plate.
The third keep burned in the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657 and was never rebuilt. A replacement foundation was constructed under Maeda Tsunanori, but rebuilding was abandoned after Hoshina Masayuki argued that a keep was not essential to defense and that urban recovery should take priority. A brick, five-story observation and wind-measurement tower was built on the foundation in 1882. Measuring about 3.64 meters square and 30 meters high, it was first used for astronomical, latitude, longitude, and meteorological observations before becoming a Central Meteorological Observatory wind-measurement facility. It remained until approximately 1923 or 1926.
Fujimi-yagura
Fujimi-yagura is a three-story fortified tower in the southeastern corner of the Honmaru. It is one of three surviving inner-citadel towers, together with Fushimi-yagura and Tatsumi-niju-yagura, from an original group of eleven. Its similar appearance on all sides gave rise to the description “all-front-sided tower.” After the keep was destroyed in 1657, Fujimi-yagura effectively served as the principal tower. It was constructed as an important structure in 1659.
Fujimi-tamon and Ishimuro
Fujimi-tamon is a long defensive building about 120 to 130 meters north of the former Great Pine Corridor. It stands on large stone walls above Hasuike-bori and was used to store weapons and tools. Fifteen such buildings once stood around the Honmaru, while Fujimi-tamon is the one that survives.
Ishimuro is a stone chamber on a slope north of Fujimi-tamon, covering about 20 square meters. Its exact purpose remains unknown. Its position near the former storage area of the Great Interior has led to the possibility that it held supplies and shogunate documents.
Shiomi-zaka and the Ninomaru approach
Shiomi-zaka is a slope beside the Imperial Music Department that runs toward the Ninomaru. Its name reflects the tradition that the sea could once be seen from it. The Ninomaru lay east of the Honmaru at the foot of the slope, separated from the Sannomaru by Tenjin-bori.
Ninomaru, Sannomaru, and surviving guardhouses
Ninomaru garden and compound
A palace for Tokugawa heirs was built in the Ninomaru in 1639, and a garden attributed to Kobori Enshu, a seventeenth-century warrior, administrator, tea practitioner, and garden designer, was established around 1630. The compound contained seven towers, eight defense houses, approximately ten gates, and other guardhouses. Fires destroyed its historic buildings, while a later garden was laid out around an Edo-period pond. The Ninomaru garden was restored in 1968 as a strolling garden associated with Kobori Enshu.
Guardhouses
Doshin-bansho survives beside the passage from Ote-mon. Samurai guards stationed there watched the castle grounds. Hyakunin-bansho is a long guardhouse south of the foundation of the Ote-Sanno-mon watari-yagura and traditionally housed one hundred guards associated with the Tokugawa family. Obansho stands inside the former Naka-no-mon, close to the entrance to the Honmaru, where it held an important defensive position.
Sannomaru and Bairin-zaka
The Sannomaru was the easternmost compound. Tenjin-bori separated it from the Ninomaru, while Ote-bori bordered it to the north and Kikyobori to the south. Bairin-zaka is a steep slope linking the eastern Honmaru with Hirakawa-mon. Tradition associates the slope with Ota Dokan’s planting of several hundred plum trees in 1478 in honor of Sugawara no Michizane, a Heian-period court scholar and statesman later venerated as Tenjin, a deity especially associated with learning.
Hirakawa-mon
Hirakawa-mon was probably the principal gate of the Sannomaru and may also have served as a side gate for women attendants. Its masugata, a gate complex arranged around a square enclosure to obstruct a direct attack, included a watari-yagura-mon and two Korai-mon. One Korai-mon served as a gate for removing the dead and criminals from inside the castle. A wooden bridge outside the gate retains decorative giboshi finials on its railings.
Ote-mon
Ote-mon was the principal gate and formal entrance for imperial envoys, the shogun, and visiting daimyo. Its masugata consisted of a Korai-mon and a watari-yagura measuring approximately 22 ken by 4 ken 2 shaku, traditional Japanese units of length. Its guard force included ten samurai and specified quantities of firearms, bows, spears, portable guns, and portable bows.
The gate was rebuilt after the 1657 fire and damaged by earthquakes in 1703 and 1855. It was dismantled after the 1923 earthquake and reconstructed between 1965 and 1967 after wartime destruction.
Tatsumi-yagura and Kikyomon
Tatsumi-yagura, also called Sakurada-yagura, is a two-story tower at the easternmost corner of the Sannomaru. Kikyomon, also called Inner Sakurada-mon, is a surviving Ninomaru gate consisting chiefly of a gate tower and a Korai-style gate.
Suwa-no-chaya
Suwa-no-chaya began as a tea house in the Edo-period Fukiage garden. After several relocations during the Meiji period, it was installed in the modern Ninomaru Garden.
Nishinomaru and western compounds
Nishinomaru palace area
The Nishinomaru contained palaces and residences for retired shoguns and heirs. Daimyo residences occupied its eastern outer section. The compound was bounded by Dokan-bori, Sakurada-bori, Gaisen-bori, Kikyobori, and Hamaguri-bori. The Nishinomaru palace burned in 1853 and again on 5 May 1873. The Meiji imperial palace was later built on the site.
Outer Sakuradamon
Outer Sakuradamon protected the Nishinomaru from the south and formed an unusually large outer masugata covering approximately 320 tsubo. It consisted of an outer Korai-mon and an inner watari-yagura-mon. The gate was earlier called Odawara Gate because it stood at the beginning of the route to Odawara. It was rebuilt as a masugata gate in 1636. Inner Sakuradamon, or Kikyomon, was a separate gate between the Nishinomaru and Sannomaru.
Sakashita-mon and the modern entrance bridges
Sakashita-mon originally faced north but was turned east during the Meiji period. Its watari-yagura gate overlooks Hamaguri-bori. The modern arrangement resulted from removing the earlier Korai-mon and rotating and relocating the gate tower during construction of the Meiji Palace and former Imperial Household Ministry offices in 1888.
Seimon Ishibashi and Seimon Tetsubashi cross the moats at the modern Imperial Palace entrance. Their former wooden bridges were replaced in the Meiji period by a stone bridge and an iron bridge. The iron bridge is called Nijubashi, while the stone bridge is also called Meganebashi because of its shape. The two are often incorrectly treated as a single bridge.
Fushimi-yagura and western gates
Fushimi-yagura is a surviving two-story tower at the western corner of the Nishinomaru, flanked by defensive galleries. It is the only surviving Edo-period tower in the Nishinomaru and originated at Fushimi Castle in Kyoto. Inui-mon, formerly the rear gate of the Nishinomaru, was moved during the Meiji period to its present position between Kitanomaru and the Fukiage Garden. Hanzomon is a Korai-style gate. The wartime-destroyed original was replaced by the relocated Wadakura Gate.
Momijiyama
Momijiyama, north of the Nishinomaru, contained shrines dedicated to former shoguns and hosted memorial ceremonies. Ieyasu established a library there in 1602, and a larger Momijiyama Library was built in 1693. Its holdings included Song-period publications, Korean books formerly held at the Kanazawa Bunko, gifts from the Hayashi family, and copies made by the Tokugawa government. These books are preserved in the National Archives of Japan.
Fukiage, Kitanomaru, and the outer defenses
Fukiage
Fukiage was converted into a firebreak after the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657. It was enclosed by Dokan-bori, Sakurada-bori, Hanzobori, Chidorigafuchi, and Inui-bori. Extensive earth ramparts formed part of its defenses.
Kitanomaru
Kitanomaru was the northern compound beside the Honmaru. Inui-bori and Hirakawa-bori separated it from the Honmaru, while Chidorigafuchi separated it from the city. It served as a medicinal garden and included residences associated with collateral Tokugawa branches. Its surviving castle-period gates include Shimizu-mon and Tayasu-mon. The area is now Kitanomaru Park.
Kitahanebashi-mon
Kitahanebashi-mon is the northern Honmaru gate facing Kitanomaru. Its former drawbridge is now fixed in place, but the metal fittings used to raise it remain attached to the roof. The gate has a masugata arrangement with a watari-yagura-mon.
Gate system and moats
In one recorded configuration, the castle had approximately 25 outer gates, 11 inner-compound gates, and 87 gates within the castle. Principal entrances commonly used a first Korai-mon and a second watari-yagura-mon. The right-angled arrangement of masugata gates forced entrants to turn before reaching the next entrance, making a direct approach difficult. Ote-mon, Hirakawa-mon, and Kitahanebashi-mon are examples.
Original gates were mainly wooden structures set into stone walls. Major entrances had large timber frames and guardhouses designed for defense and to display shogunal authority. The outer moats once extended toward Ichigaya, Yotsuya, Toranomon, and the Sumida River. Much of their water surface was filled after the Meiji period for railways and urban development, while water channels survive between Iidabashi, Yotsuya, and Akasaka-mitsuke. The foundations of Toranomon Gate were excavated during construction of the Ministry of Education building in 2004 and preserved in an underground exhibition.
Relocated buildings and surviving fabric
Several castle buildings were moved beyond the original site. A building identified as the birthplace room of the third shogun, Iemitsu, survives at Kitain Temple in Kawagoe. A Toshogu shrine building from the Ninomaru survives at Hikawa Shrine. The Hasuike Gate was moved to Nagoya Castle in 1910, destroyed in the 1945 air raid, and later reconstructed.
Surviving and reconstructed elements include Fujimi-yagura, Fushimi-yagura, Tatsumi-yagura, Sakurada Tatsumi-yagura, guardhouses, gates, walls, earthworks, moats, and other structures. The upper sections of Tayasu-mon and Shimizu-mon were reconstructed in 1964, Ote-mon was reconstructed in 1967, and the Ninomaru Garden was restored in 1968.
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