Noshima Castle

Noshima Castle (能島城, Noshima-jō) was a Sengoku period Japanese castle in Ehime Prefecture, Japan, located on an island in the Seto Inland Sea. It was the stronghold of the Noshima Murakami, a maritime clan of sailors and sometimes pirates or mercenaries. The ruins of Noshima Castle were designated as a National Historic Site in 1953.

Noshima Castle extends over all of Noshima island, which dominates the narrow straight between Hakatajima and Ujima, just at the south of the major sea route in the Geiyo Islands. These small islands were used as a crossing between Shikoku and Honshu since ancient times and provided safe anchorage for ships to pass typhoons or storms; on the other hand, the narrow channels between the islands were hazardous due to undersea rocks and shoals and unpredictable currents, so the islands also formed a natural restriction on traffic on the Seto Inland Sea. Because of these reasons, the maritime peoples of the islands prospered from marine transportation and commerce, and also acted as navigators of passing ships with tolls, supplementing their income with occasional piracy.

Due times of war, they served as a mercenary naval force. During the Muromachi period, one of the major clans dominating the islands was the Murakami clan. The Murakami were divided into three houses, with the Kurushima Murakami clan which was the closest to Shikoku, and who owed fealty to the Kōno clan, who had been appointed as shugo of Iyo Province from the Kamakura period, the Innoshima Murakami clan owed fealty to the Mōri clan which held Onomichi area in Honshu, and the Noshima Murakami clan, who kept a neutral position and who cultivated relations directly with the Muromachi shogunate.

In 1499, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshitane was expelled from Kyoto due to an attempted coup by the Hosokawa clan and found refuge at Noshima Castle en route to rally allied forces from the Ouchi clan in Suo Province. In his counter-attack against the Hosokawa, Murakami Masafusa (1413-1515) provided naval support and reconstructed Noshima Castle as a base of operations. The surface of the island was flattened into three terraces and the three ridges of the island extending from the center were enclosed with stone walls to form enclosures. An anchorage was developed on the north shore of the island, which was more sheltered against the strong currents.

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

Noshima Castle ranks #5,057 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #247 of the 297 mapped in Japan. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,183 times in the last 60 days, more than 53% of the atlas. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Okayama, 93 km away. It is one of the 15 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Shikoku. See how Japan compares in the castle statistics.

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