Hirosaki Castle: Administrative Center of the Tsugaru Domain
Site at a Glance
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Japanese, Tokugawa
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page18 sections
History
Hirosaki Castle is an early Edo-period Japanese castle on the Tsugaru Plain, built for the Tsugaru lords from 1610 to 1611. It became the seat and administrative headquarters of Hirosaki Domain, a territory governed under the shogunate, and a political and economic center of the Tsugaru region.
Founding the castle
In 1590, Ōura Tamenobu, previously a retainer of the Nambu, received confirmation from Toyotomi Hideyoshi of territory assessed at 45,000 koku. A koku was a measure of assessed rice yield used to express a lord’s income and status. Tamenobu adopted the Tsugaru surname. After supporting Tokugawa Ieyasu at the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara, he was confirmed as lord of Hirosaki Domain, with his assessed income raised to 47,000 koku.
Tamenobu moved his base from Ōura Castle to Horikoshi Castle in 1594, but considered Horikoshi unsuitable for military use. He chose Takaoka, the site of the later Hirosaki Castle, for a new stronghold. In 1603 he ordered development of the town, but castle construction had not begun when he died in Kyoto in 1607. His successor, Tsugaru Nobuhira, started building in 1610, and the castle was completed the following year. Reusing buildings and materials from Horikoshi and Ōura castles helped speed the work.
The castle was first called Takaoka Castle. Both the castle and the place-name became Hirosaki in 1628. As the Tsugaru lords’ seat, the castle served both governmental and regional economic purposes.
Fire and the later keep
A lightning strike in 1627 set fire to the original five-story keep at the southwest corner of the main enclosure. Gunpowder stored inside exploded, destroying the tower, the palace in the main enclosure, and other turrets. The keep was not rebuilt for nearly two centuries. A contemporary tradition attributed the disaster to the vengeful spirit of a sister of Tamenobu’s wife, who was believed to have died grieving after her husband divorced her.
In 1810, the ninth domain lord, Tsugaru Yasuchika, secured the shogunate’s permission to build a three-story turret, presenting the work officially as a renovation of the Tatsumi Turret. It was completed in 1811. The Tsugaru authorities classified it as a turret rather than a keep, partly to avoid restrictions on castle construction, although it functioned as the castle’s main tower. Permission was also associated with concern about Russian ships travelling through the Tsugaru Strait.
Military control and public park
The castle came under military authority in 1871 and was used by the Imperial Japanese Army. A weapons depot was established in the Third Bailey in 1898. Following the transfer to military control, palace buildings, the martial-arts school, and much of the walls were dismantled by 1884.
The former castle grounds were opened as a public park in 1895, after being made available for that purpose in 1894. The Tsugaru family initially managed the park and covered its expenses; the city took over its funding in 1902. The Crown Prince, later Emperor Taishō, gave the park the name Ōyōen in 1908. Two turrets, in the North and West enclosures, burned in 1906. A bronze statue of Tamenobu was erected at the site of the former keep in 1909. It was removed in 1944 for wartime metal collection, along with bronze fittings and roof ornaments. A replica of the statue was installed near the East Gate, in front of the Hirosaki Cultural Center, in 2004. Hirosaki escaped the air raids that destroyed many other Japanese castles, leaving its principal surviving buildings intact.
Protection and later work
Eight surviving structures received the prewar National Treasure designation in 1937. Under the cultural-property protection system introduced in 1950, the surviving structures other than the Third Bailey East Gate became Important Cultural Properties; that gate received the same status in 1953. In 1952, the castle grounds were designated a National Historic Site together with the Chōshōji enclosure and the Saishōin temple precinct. The designation title changed to Tsugaru Clan Castle Sites in 1985, when Horikoshi Castle was added. Tanesato Castle joined the designation in 2002, bringing its combined area to about 1,054,000 square meters.
Remains
Hirosaki Castle stands on the Tsugaru Plain and was laid out around an elevated stronghold and lower surrounding grounds. Its six enclosed sections, or baileys, were the main, second, third, and fourth enclosures, the North Enclosure, and the West Enclosure. The original grounds measured 612 meters from east to west and 947 meters from north to south, covering about 385,200 square meters. Walls and moats once separated the sections; moats, stone walls, and earthworks survive. Hirosaki Park surrounds the castle grounds. Cherry trees have been planted there since 1903, and the park now contains about 2,600. Shunyo Bridge crosses the West Moat and was replaced in 2005, 73 years after its previous construction.
The keep
Original tower site
The first keep stood at the southwest corner of the main enclosure. It rose five stories and probably had six internal floors. Its supporting stonework remains at that corner.
Surviving keep
The present keep stands at the southeast corner of the main enclosure, on the site of a former turret rather than on the original tower’s stone base. It is a freestanding, three-story building with three roofs, about 14.4 meters tall. It is the shortest surviving three-story castle keep in Japan. A defensive turret once attached to its north side had been removed by about 1896.
White plaster covers the exterior, and copper tiles roof the building. The outward-facing east and south sides have large projecting gabled windows on the first and second stories, along with small openings for weapons and decorative horizontal bands. On the inward-facing west and north sides, plain rows of lattice windows create a contrasting appearance. The timber construction is comparable to that of an ordinary turret. Its floors were not designed for tatami coverings, and the building was intended for storage.
Turrets and gates
Surviving turrets
Three three-story turrets remain in the second enclosure: the Tatsumi, Ushitora, and Hitsujisaru turrets. In January 2025, heavy snow brought down a pine about 20 meters tall and roughly 200 years old onto the Hitsujisaru Turret, damaging part of its second-story eaves and exterior wall.
Surviving gates
Five gates survive in the walls of the second and third enclosures: the Sannomaru Ōtemon Gate, Sannomaru East Gate, Ninomaru South Gate, Ninomaru East Gate, and Kitanokuruwa North Gate, also known as the Kikko Gate. Together with the surviving keep and turrets, the gates are among the castle’s Edo-period buildings. The castle originally had ten gates. The Kitanokuruwa North Gate came from Daikōji Castle, while the former Sannomaru North Inner Gate, also called the Kada Gate, was transferred from Ōura Castle. These reused gates helped shorten construction. The tail of the fish-shaped roof ornament on the East Inner Gate was damaged in the January 2025 snowfall.
Other defensive features
Ninomaru East Gate guardhouse
A guardhouse associated with the Ninomaru East Gate survives at a relocated and reconstructed site. After being used as accommodation for park staff, it was moved and rebuilt in its present position between 1979 and 1981.
Chōshōji enclosure
The Chōshōji enclosure lies outside the castle’s main southwestern side and served as an outwork, a defensive position beyond the principal enclosure. Its remains include a moat, earthworks, and a right-angled defensive enclosure.
Archaeological remains
North Enclosure shrine
Excavations in 1999 and 2000 revealed foundations of a former palace structure and a Shinto shrine in the North Enclosure. The shrine remains include foundations for its main sanctuary and bases for a torii, a gate marking entry to a sacred Shinto area. The shrine once held a wooden seated statue of Hideyoshi, installed by Tamenobu and Nobuhira despite the risk of offending the Tokugawa authorities. The Tsugaru family transferred the statue to a temple in 1957.
Finds beneath the keep
Investigation of the keep’s stone platform in 2023 uncovered pottery and stone tools from the late Final Jōmon period, a prehistoric era associated with distinctive pottery. The finds date to about 2,500–2,400 years ago and were reburied to preserve them.
Repairs to the stone wall near the keep followed concerns identified in 2007 about its outward bulging and the keep’s lean. A repair plan was adopted in 2012. The keep was raised and shifted in 2015 so work on the wall could proceed, and major repairs began in 2016.
