Kihara Castle

Miho, Japan, Japan

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Kihara Castle was a flat-land Japanese castle (hirajiro) located in what is now Miho Village in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, built on a plateau along the south bank of a river and used mainly during the warlike periods of medieval Japan.

Unlike mountain castles, it relied on extensive earthworks, moats, and stone walls rather than elevation for defense, and its layout included the typical concentric defense zones known as honmaru (main enclosure) and ninomaru (second enclosure). Today the castle itself no longer stands; only its ruins survive within Shiroyama Park, where visitors can see remaining embankments, moat traces, and parkland that marks the site of the former stronghold.

The area is historically notable because the modern village of Miho was formed in 1955 by merging the older villages of Kihara and Anju, so the castle’s name is preserved in local history and place names even though the structure is long gone.