Matsukura Castle

Takayama, Japan, Japan

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Matsukura Castle is the ruins of a 16th‑century mountain fortress located on the summit of Mount Matsukura (about 857 meters high) in the western part of Takayama City, Gifu Prefecture, in the former Hida Province, and it is sometimes described as having been the highest‑altitude castle in Japan.

The castle was built around 1579 by the local lord Mitsuki (sometimes recorded as Anekōji) Yoritsuna, who united the Hida area under the Oda clan and designed the site with advanced stone walls on all sides, earning it a reputation as an “impregnable” stronghold. However, in 1585, Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s commander Kanamori Nagachika attacked the Hida District; Matsukura was set on fire after a betrayal by one of Yoritsuna’s retainers and was destroyed only six years after its construction, after which the site was abandoned and the castle fell into ruin.

Today only stone foundations, dry‑stone walls, and defensive earthworks remain on the mountain, but these ruins are preserved as a local historic site designated by Gifu Prefecture in 1956, and the area is home to a small temple on the hillside dedicated to the horse‑headed deity Hayagriva (Bato Kannon), which is known as Matsukura Kannon‑do and still holds an annual festival in August with horse votive tablets.