Matsusaka Castle

Matsusaka Castle (松坂城, Matsusaka-jō) was a Japanese castle (now in ruins) located in the city of Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture, Japan. Throughout most of the Edo period, Matsusaka Castle was a secondary administrative center for the Kishu-Tokugawa clan, daimyō of Kishū Domain. It has been protected as a National Historic Site since 2011.

Matsusaka Castle is located on the west coast of Ise Bay, in the center of former Ise Province. In addition to the nearby seaport, the castle dominated a land communication junction, where five roads leading to Iga, Yamato Province, Yamato, and Kii Province and the road to Ise Shrine converged. The castle town of Matsusaka prospered by trading, and merchants of Matsusaka were known for their activities nationwide. The founder of Mitsui, one of modern Japan's largest commercial enterprises was born in Matsuzaka.

The castle itself is built on a wedge-shaped hill facing eastward and consists of three layers of terraces. The Honmaru (central bailey) at the top of the hill is a square and held a three-story five-floor tenshu tower with gold roof tiles on its western side, and a yagura watchtower on its eastern side. The middle enclosure also had a large yagura tower, which overlooked the lowest layer of defenses, which was divided into several smaller kuruwa. The core area of the castle is relatively small, measuring roughly 200 meters square, but unusually for the time, most of the walls on all of the enclosures are faced with stone.

During the Muromachi period, the area of Matsuzawa was denominated by the Kitabatake clan, who were strong supporters of Emperor Go-Daigo and the Southern Court. However, during the Sengoku period, they were defeated by Oda Nobunaga, who installed his son, Oda Nobukatsu as governor of Ise Province. Oda Nobukatsu initially resided at Tamaru Castle, located ten kilometers south of Matsuzaka, and later relocated to Matsugashima Castle, directly on the Matsuzaka coastline. After the assassination of Oda Nobunaga in 1582, Ise was invaded by the army of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who installed his general Gamō Ujisato at Matsugashima as daimyō of a 123,000 koku domain.

Text adapted from “Matsusaka Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Matsusaka Castle ranks #3,156 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #164 of the 297 mapped in Japan. Founded 1588, it is older than 35% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,577 times in the last 60 days, more than 72% of the atlas. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Tsu, 2 km away. See how Japan compares in the castle statistics.

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