Sunpu Castle

Sunpu Castle (駿府城, Sunpu-jō) is a Japanese castle in Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan. The sobriquet of this feudal fortress was the "Castle of the Floating Isle". It was also referred to as Fuchu Castle (府中城, Fuchū-jō) or Shizuoka Castle (静岡城, Shizuoka-jō).

During the Muromachi period, the Imagawa clan ruled Suruga Province from their base at Sunpu (in modern-day central Shizuoka City). It is not certain exactly when an Imagawa Sunpu castle was built on this site.

After Imagawa Yoshimoto was defeated at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560, Suruga Province passed to the Takeda clan, and then to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had spent his youth in Sunpu as Yoshimoto's hostage.

In 1585, Ieyasu constructed a new Sunpu Castle on the approximate site of the former fortified Imagawa residence. He took up residence at the castle in 1586, along with his favored consort, Lady Saigō, and their two sons, Hidetada and Tadayoshi. Lady Saigo died at Sunpu Castle in 1589. After the defeat of the later Hōjō clan at the Battle of Odawara by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Ieyasu was forced to change his domains in the Tōkai region with the provinces of the Kantō region, and turned Sunpu Castle over to Toyotomi retainer Nakamura Kazuichi in 1590.

After the defeat of the forces loyal to the heir of Toyotomi at the Battle of Sekigahara, Ieyasu recovered Sunpu. With the formation of the Tokugawa shogunate, Ieyasu turned the title of shōgun over to his son Tokugawa Hidetada, and retired to Sunpu, where he set up a shadow government to maintain effective rule over the country from behind the scenes. As part of the Tokugawa policy to sap potential rivals of economic strength, daimyōs from around the country were called upon to rebuild Sumpu Castle in 1607 with a triple moat system, keep and palace. When this burned down in 1610, the daimyōs were ordered to rebuild it immediately, this time with a seven-story donjon.

The castle was visited by John Saris on the first English trade mission to Japan in 1613. Saris and William Adams met with Ieyasu here to exchange gifts and negotiate terms for the East India Company to trade with Japan.

After Ieyasu's death in 1616, Sunpu Castle remained the seat of government for the surrounding Sunpu Domain, which for most of its existence was a tenryō territory governed directly by the shōgun in Edo.

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

Sunpu Castle ranks #779 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #35 of the 297 mapped in Japan. Founded 1585, it is older than 35% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 718 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 13,406 times in the last 60 days, more than 95% of the atlas. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Japan compares in the castle statistics.

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