Twelve castle keeps survive from the Edo period in Japan. Every one of them is listed below, with a link to a guide that explains what is left of the original building, what was rebuilt, and how to reach it. The other keeps you will see on a trip — the black keep at Okayama, the concrete keep at Kumamoto — are twentieth-century reconstructions, and they are listed separately further down so you know what you are looking at.
The twelve original keeps
These keeps have stood since the Edo period. Several were repaired or partially rebuilt after fires, but the tower itself is the old structure.
- Himeji Castle, Hyogo — the largest and most complete of the twelve, and a World Heritage site
- Matsumoto Castle, Nagano — the black keep, with the moon-viewing turret beside it
- Inuyama Castle, Aichi — the oldest surviving keep, on a bluff above the Kiso River
- Hikone Castle, Shiga — a National Treasure keep an hour from Kyoto on the Biwa line
- Hirosaki Castle, Aomori — a three-storey keep inside a park of cherry trees
- Maruoka Castle, Fukui — rebuilt in 1948 from its own fallen timbers, now under restoration
- Matsue Castle, Shimane — a National Treasure keep on the Japan Sea coast
- Matsuyama Castle, Ehime — the 1854 keep on the hill above the city
- Kochi Castle, Kochi — one of the few with both the keep and the palace intact
- Uwajima Castle, Ehime — a small keep above the port, up a steep path
- Marugame Castle, Kagawa — an original keep on one of the tallest stone walls in Japan
- Bitchu-Matsuyama Castle, Okayama — the highest original keep, reached on foot from Takahashi
Reconstructed keeps worth visiting
These towers are modern buildings on original castle sites. Go for the stone walls, the site and the view — and know that the interior is a museum rather than a sixteenth-century room.
- Kumamoto Castle, Kumamoto — Kato Kiyomasa’s walls, and a keep rebuilt in concrete
- Kokura Castle, Fukuoka — a 1959 rebuild inside the old moat
- Odawara Castle, Kanagawa — the Hojo stronghold, rebuilt in 1960
- Tsuruga Castle, Fukushima — the Aizu keep, rebuilt in 1965
- Shimabara Castle, Nagasaki — a 1964 rebuild whose scale is still argued about
- Komine Castle, Fukushima — a reconstructed turret, with gate work still going on
- Ozu Castle, Ehime — rebuilt in wood in 2004, using traditional methods
- Gujo Hachiman Castle, Gifu — a 1933 wooden reconstruction above the water town
Castles that are ruins, palaces or forts
Some of the most interesting sites never had a keep worth rebuilding — or were never a keep at all.
- Nijo Castle, Kyoto — a shogunal palace with nightingale floors, not a tower
- Goryokaku, Hokkaido — a star-shaped fort of the late Tokugawa years
- Nakijin Castle, Okinawa — a Ryukyu gusuku of limestone walls, World Heritage listed
- Nakagusuku Castle, Okinawa — walls and a view, with no keep at any point
If you are choosing between them: Himeji is the one to see if you see only one, Matsumoto has the best interior of the old keeps, and Hikone or Marugame fit a Kyoto or Takamatsu itinerary without a detour. For the gardens that went with these castles, see the Okayama Korakuen guide.
Other collections on this site
- Japan’s Onsen Towns
- Day Trips from Tokyo
- Day Trips from Kyoto and Osaka
- UNESCO World Heritage in Japan
- First Time in Japan: how to plan a trip
- Japan by Season: spring, summer, autumn, winter
- Japanese Gardens — groups them by garden type, and by season
- Japan’s Old Towns — sorts the preserved streets by what kind of town they were
