Hamamatsu Castle

Hamamatsu, Japan, Japan

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Hamamatsu Castle is a historic castle in the city of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, originally built in 1570 and famously known as the early base of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate.

The castle was initially called Hikuma Castle, but Ieyasu expanded and renamed it when he took control in 1570, and he lived there for 17 years while conducting major campaigns that paved his way to becoming shogun in 1603. Because many lords who served at Hamamatsu Castle later rose to high positions in the shogunate, it is nicknamed the “Shusse Castle” or “Castle of Advancement”.

The castle is a hirayama-style (flatland hill) castle built on the Mikatahara Plateau, with a central keep surrounded by stone walls constructed in the nozura-zumi technique, where rough stones are piled together to form strong fortifications. Most of the original buildings were destroyed during the Meiji Restoration and World War II, but the main three-story keep was rebuilt in 1958 on its original stone foundations and now houses a museum with Tokugawa-related artifacts and models of the castle from the Edo period.