Otaki Castle

Otaki, Japan, Japan

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Otaki Castle (Ōtaki Castle) is a hilltop castle in the town of Ōtaki, southeast Chiba Prefecture, on the Boso Peninsula, best known for its association with the famous Edo-period general Honda Tadakatsu and for its modern reconstruction that serves as a local museum.

The original fortifications were built in the early 1500s by warlords such as Takeda Nobukiyo and later came under the control of the Satomi clan, but after the 1590 Battle of Odawara and the unification of Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu placed his trusted retainer Honda Tadakatsu in the area, and Tadakatsu essentially created the castle that became the symbol of Otaki Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate.

The castle remained an important local stronghold and was ruled in the Edo period by several families (Honda, Abe, Aoyama, Inagaki, and finally the Matsudaira), but during the Meiji Restoration it was ordered abandoned and in 1871 the buildings were demolished, leaving only some stone walls and the distinctive Yakuimon gate, which dates to 1844 and still stands at the foot of the hill.