The celebrated 14th-century military commander Kusunoki Masashige (1294–1336), who owned extensive lands south of what is now the city of Osaka, ordered one of his vassals, Kishiwada Osamu, to build a fortified residence. This order was carried out around 1336. These fortifications became the first structures on the site of what would later become Kishiwada Castle. From the beginning, the castle stood in a strategically important location—roughly halfway between the cities of Wakayama and Osaka, south of the key port of Sakai. Because of this position, it changed hands several times during periods of warfare.
At the start of the Sengoku Jidai period, Kishiwada Castle was controlled by Miyoshi Yoshikata (1527–1562). Under his rule, the castle was greatly expanded and reinforced. In the second half of the 16th century, the castle became one of the battlegrounds in Oda Nobunaga’s struggle against the followers of the Ikko-ikki movement. Nobunaga seized the castle and appointed Oda Nobuharu as its commander, attempting to prevent the Ikko-ikki forces from the Saiga region and the Ishiyama Honganji temple from joining together. However, after Nobunaga’s death in 1582, his fears came true.
Two years later, Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched a campaign against Tokugawa Ieyasu, leaving the Osaka region without major military forces. The Saiga Ikko-ikki took advantage of this and attacked Kishiwada Castle. Their assault was stopped by Hideyoshi’s troops under the command of Matsuura Munekiyo and Nakamura Kazuuji in the Battle of Kishiwada. The castle itself withstood a two-month siege and later served as Hideyoshi’s base during the conquest of Kii Province.
To protect the port of Sakai and the approaches to Osaka, Hideyoshi appointed his uncle, Koide Hidemasa, as governor of Kishiwada and ordered him to build a new castle. Construction was completed in 1585: the castle gained stone walls, moats, and towers, and by 1597 it also had a powerful main keep.
During the Sekigahara Campaign, Hidemasa and his eldest son Yoshimasa fought for the Western Coalition, which ultimately lost. However, following the example of some other daimyo, Hidemasa sent his second son, Hideie, to fight for the Eastern Coalition. As a result, Kishiwada Castle remained in the hands of the Koide clan under the new Tokugawa shogunate.
In 1619, Koide Hideie was transferred to the Izushi Domain, and the castle was given to Matsudaira Yasushige. Yasushige added several buildings to the castle complex. In 1623, one of the towers was relocated from Fushimi Castle.
In 1640, Kishiwada passed to Okabe Nobukatsu. After that, the Okabe clan held the castle until the Meiji Restoration. The castle’s main keep burned down after being struck by lightning in 1827, and most of the remaining structures were destroyed during the Boshin Civil War.
In 1954, a new main keep (tenshu) made of reinforced concrete was built on the surviving tenshudai foundation. The original historic keep had five stories, while the current “reconstruction” has only three. The building was funded through donations, with a significant contribution from descendants of the Okabe family. The architect for the project was Ikedaya Hisayoshi. At first, the keep was used as a local library, and later it was repurposed into a history museum.
In 1969, the walls of the honmaru courtyard, along with some towers and gates, were reconstructed. Some of the castle’s stone walls and moats have survived since the time it was built. The museum collection is small, and the armor on display mostly dates to the Edo period. The castle grounds were also shaped in part by the well-known 20th-century landscape designer Mirei Shigemori. In 1953, he created the beautiful rock garden Hachi Jin-no Niwa within the castle. The stones for the garden were brought from Okinoshima Island, and the white sand came from the banks of the Shirakawa River near Kyoto.
The castle complex has national status as a scenic site. In 2017, Kishiwada was included in the list “Japan’s Continued Top 100 Castles” (Top 200). The castle is also known by the name Chikiro. In addition, several scenes from the 2021 film G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes were filmed at the castle.
See also
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Takada Castle
During the Sengoku period, the lands where Takada Castle would later be built were part of Echigo Province and were controlled by the Uesugi clan.
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Kaminoyama Castle
Kamino-yama Castle stood at the center of an important logistics hub, in the middle of the Yonezawa Plain, which served as the gateway to the western part of the Tohoku region. Roads connecting the Aizu, Fukushima, and Yamagata areas intersected here.
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Imabari Castle
Tōdō Takatora (1556–1630) served at different times as a vassal of several famous clans—Azai, Oda, Toyotomi, and Tokugawa. He took part in the Battle of Anegawa (1570), the Battle of Shizugatake (1583), the invasions of Kyushu and Korea, the Sekigahara campaign (1600), and the Siege of Osaka (1614–1615).
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Iwakuni Castle
Kikkawa Hiroie (1561–1625) was the grandson of the famous daimyo Mori Motonari and a vassal of the Mori clan. Under Mori Terumoto, he fought in both Korean campaigns and took part in the defense of Ulsan Castle. During the Battle of Sekigahara, Hiroie stood with his 3,000-man force on the side of the Western Coalition; however, even before the battle began, he sent Tokugawa Ieyasu a secret message stating that he did not intend to fight Tokugawa’s troops. As a result of his inaction, 15,000 soldiers under Mori Hidemoto were also unable to enter the battle, since Hiroie blocked their path.
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Gujo Hachiman Castle
Gujo Hachiman Castle is located on 350-meter Mount Hachiman, near the confluence of the Yoshidagawa and Kodaragava rivers, and not far from the Nagaragawa River. During the Sengoku period, this area was of great strategic importance: it stood at a key crossroads of routes connecting Mino Province in the south with the Sea of Japan in the north, and Hida Province in the east with Echizen Province in the west.
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Amagasaki Castle
The founding year of Amagasaki Castle is traditionally considered to be 1617, when Toda Ujikané built his castle here, making it the administrative center of the Amagasaki Domain. However, as early as the Sengoku period, a fortress built by the Hosokawa clan already stood on this site. After the fall of Itami Castle in 1579, Araki Murashige—formerly a vassal of Oda Nobunaga who had rebelled against him—fled to this earlier castle.
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Hiroshima Castle
Mōri Terumoto (1553–1625) was the grandson and rightful heir of the renowned Mōri Motonari. When Terumoto became the head of the Mōri clan in 1571, he inherited vast territories covering a large part of the San’in and San’yō regions in western Honshū. In addition, the Mōri clan possessed the largest and most technologically advanced naval fleet of its time.
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Fukuyama Castle
After the defeat of Toyotomi Hideyori’s supporters in the Osaka Campaigns of 1614–1615, many clans in Japan still remained not fully loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate, especially in the western Chūgoku region. Mizuno Katsunari (1564–1651), a cousin of Tokugawa Ieyasu, became the first of the Tokugawa house’s close retainers, the so-called fudai daimyō, to be relocated to this strategically important area.
