Fukui Castle

Overview

Fukui Castle (福井城, Fukui-jō) is a flatland castle in the city of Fukui, in Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast. Construction began in 1606, in year 11 of the Keichō era (慶長, けいちょう), and the castle served through the Edo period (1603–1868) as the headquarters of Fukui Domain (福井藩, Fukui-han), ruled by a branch of the Matsudaira clan (松平氏, Matsudaira-shi) as hereditary daimyō (大名, だいみょう — great lords) under the Tokugawa shogunate. It is listed among the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles (続日本100名城, Zoku Nihon Hyaku Meijō), a 2017 selection of notable castle sites. The site lies at roughly 36.07° north, 136.22° east, in the heart of the modern city.

History

The castle stands partly on the ruins of an earlier fortress, Kitanoshō Castle (北ノ庄城, Kitanoshō-jō), built by Shibata Katsuie (柴田勝家, しばた かついえ). Kitanoshō was the stronghold of the Shibata house in the late sixteenth century, in the turbulent decades when Oda Nobunaga and his successors were consolidating control of Japan. The name Kitanoshō remained attached to the site, and Fukui Castle was long known by it as well.

The castle that gives the site its present name dates from 1606, when construction began under the newly established Tokugawa order. The Tokugawa shogunate, founded in 1603, reorganised the country's domains and assigned them to trusted houses. Fukui Domain was given to a branch of the Matsudaira, the family from which the shoguns themselves descended, and the castle became the seat of that branch for the whole of the Edo period.

As a flatland castle, Fukui Castle was built on level ground rather than on a mountain, and its defences relied on wide moats, earthen ramparts and stone walls rather than on natural height. Castles of this type served as administrative capitals as much as military strongholds: the daimyō's residence, the domain's offices and its storehouses all stood within the enclosure.

What Stands There Today

The castle site is now in central Fukui, and its most conspicuous survival is the moat that rings the former enclosure. Stone walls and the line of the water defences mark out the extent of the Edo-period castle, and the grounds are laid out as a public park. The site is registered in the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles, the list issued in 2017 to follow the original Top 100 of 2006.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name is written 福井城. Its kana reading is ふくいじょう, and its romaji is Fukui-jō.

The name breaks down into three characters:

• 福 — read ふく (fuku) in this word. It means "fortune", "good luck" or "blessing". It is a common element in Japanese place names and personal names, and it also appears in the name of the city, Fukui (福井市, Fukui-shi).
• 井 — read い (i) in this word. It means "well", as in a well for drawing water. The combination 福井, "fortunate well", is the origin of the place name; the reading of the two characters together is Fukui.
• 城 — read じょう (jō) in this word. It means "castle". When it follows a place name it forms the standard word for that place's castle, so 福井城 is literally "Fukui Castle".

The reading じょう is the on'yomi, the Sino-Japanese reading of 城, and it is the form used in compound castle names. The same character has a native Japanese reading, しろ (shiro), used when the word stands alone. A reader who knows 城 = jō can recognise hundreds of castle names across Japan.

The older name for the site, 北ノ庄城, is read きたのしょうじょう (Kitanoshō-jō). Here 北 is きた (kita, "north"), ノ is the katakana particle no, linking the words, and 庄 is しょう (shō), meaning a manor or rural estate. The name therefore means, roughly, "castle of the northern manor".

Visiting and Context

Fukui Castle lies in the centre of Fukui city, close to the city's main railway station and civic buildings, and the moat and stone walls can be seen on foot from the surrounding streets. The site is a natural starting point for exploring the old castle town, whose street pattern still reflects the layout of the Edo-period domain capital.

Fukui Prefecture faces the Sea of Japan and is reached from Kyoto and Osaka by rail through the mountains of the Hokuriku region. The castle's association with the Matsudaira branch makes it a useful reference point for readers encountering the many Matsudaira place names in Japanese historical texts: the same family name appears in domain names across the country, and 福井城 marks one of its principal seats. The Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles listing places the site among the castles singled out for preservation and public interpretation in the twenty-first century.