Kakegawa Castle

Overview

Kakegawa Castle (掛川城, Kakegawa-jō) is a Japanese castle in the city of Kakegawa, in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan. It is a hirayama-style castle, meaning it was built on a low hill surrounded by flat ground rather than on a mountain peak or on open plains. Construction began in 1469, the first year of the Bunmei era, during the Muromachi period (1336–1573).

The castle served as the seat of several fudai daimyō clans — lords classified as hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa shoguns — who governed Kakegawa Domain in Tōtōmi Province. Tōtōmi corresponds roughly to the western half of modern Shizuoka Prefecture. Kakegawa Castle is listed among the 100 Fine Castles of Japan, a selection maintained by the Japan Castle Foundation.

History

The castle's foundation is dated to 1469, in the first year of the Bunmei era. The Muromachi period in which it was built was an age of shifting allegiances among regional warlords, and a stronghold on this site controlled the Tōkaidō, the main road linking the capital region with the east.

Kakegawa Castle is closely associated with the Siege of Kakegawa, the military engagement that decided control of the castle and the surrounding domain. The castle later became the administrative headquarters of Kakegawa Domain, the feudal territory governed from it. Over the centuries it passed between fudai daimyō houses, each of which ruled the domain in turn.

What Stands There Today

The castle site occupies a low hill in central Kakegawa, within walking distance of Kakegawa Station on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen line. The grounds are maintained as a public park and historic site, and the castle is promoted as one of the 100 Fine Castles of Japan.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is written 掛川城.

• Kana reading: かけがわじょう
• Romaji: Kakegawa-jō

Broken down character by character:

掛 — read kake in this word. The character means "to hang," "to suspend," or "to depend on." It is the first element of the place name Kakegawa.

川 — read gawa here. The character means "river." Note the sound change: the character is read kawa in isolation, but when it follows another element in a compound name it often voices to gawa. Kakegawa sits on the banks of a river, and the name reflects that geography.

城 — read jō here. The character means "castle." In isolation it can also be read shiro, and that is the everyday Japanese word for a castle. In formal compound names, however, the reading jō is standard, which is why Japanese castle names almost always end in -jō: Osaka-jō, Himeji-jō, Kakegawa-jō.

The whole name therefore means, roughly, "the castle at Kakegawa." Japanese castle names are typically formed by attaching 城 to the name of the place where the castle stands, and Kakegawa Castle follows that pattern exactly.

For learners, two points are worth holding on to. First, the kawa → gawa shift is a regular feature of Japanese place names and appears in hundreds of them, so it is worth recognising rather than memorising case by case. Second, 城 has two common readings with different registers: shiro in ordinary speech, jō in formal names. Both refer to the same thing.

Visiting and Context

Kakegawa lies in western Shizuoka Prefecture, on the Tōkaidō line between Shizuoka and Hamamatsu, and the castle site is in the central part of the city. Its position on the old Tōkaidō road made it a natural point of control in the Muromachi period, and its later role as the seat of Kakegawa Domain kept it politically important through the feudal era.

For readers of Japanese, the castle's name is a compact lesson in how Japanese builds place names: a geographic element, a river, and a suffix denoting a fortified site. The same three-part logic — place name plus 城 — recurs across the country, so Kakegawa Castle is a useful first example to learn the pattern from.