Kanazawa Castle

Overview

Kanazawa Castle (金沢城, Kanazawa-jō) is a large, partially restored castle in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan coast. It stands immediately beside Kenroku-en, the garden that once served as the castle's private outer garden. For nearly three centuries it was the headquarters of Kaga Domain (加賀藩, Kaga-han), the feudal territory ruled by the Maeda clan (前田氏, Maeda-shi). The castle is counted among the 100 Fine Castles of Japan (日本100名城, Nihon Meijō), a list maintained by the Japanese Castle Foundation. Its site lies at roughly 36.56° north, 136.66° east, in the old province of Kaga (加賀国, Kaga no kuni).

History

Construction began in 1583, in the eleventh year of the Tenshō era (天正, Tenshō), during the Azuchi–Momoyama period. That span, running from 1573 to 1603, was the era of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, when Japan was being forcibly reunified after a century of civil war. The castle was built on the site of an earlier fortified temple complex, the Kanazawa Mido, which the Maeda had taken in 1580.

The founder of the Maeda line at Kanazawa was Maeda Toshiie (前田利家), one of Hideyoshi's most senior generals. Toshiie entered the castle in 1583 and made it the seat of a domain that soon grew to be the largest in Japan after the shogun's own lands, assessed at over one million koku of rice. The Maeda held Kanazawa without interruption for fourteen generations, from the Sengoku period through to the abolition of the domains in 1871, three years after the Meiji Restoration.

Fire was the castle's persistent enemy. Major blazes struck the complex repeatedly across the Edo period, and the keep itself was destroyed in 1602 after a lightning strike and never rebuilt. The Maeda governed instead from a set of turrets and gates, and the castle remained a working administrative capital rather than a purely military stronghold.

What Stands There Today

The castle's surviving structures are reconstructions and restorations rather than original fabric. The Hishi Yagura (菱櫓), the Gojikken Nagaya (五十間長屋) — a long, 50-ken storehouse corridor — and the Hashizume-mon Tsuzuki Yagura (橋爪門続櫓) were rebuilt in 2001 using traditional timber techniques and lead roof tiles. The Ishikawa-mon gate (石川門) and the Sanjikken Nagaya (三十間長屋) are Edo-period survivors that came through the fires and the modern era.

The stone walls are the most historically substantial element on the site. They incorporate a range of masonry styles, including the gobo-zumi (ごぼう積み) technique of roughly laid stones, and some blocks carry the marks of the individual stonemasons and lords who contributed them.

The castle grounds are now open to the public as Kanazawa Castle Park (金沢城公園, Kanazawa-jō Kōen). Kenroku-en lies directly across the connecting bridge, and the two sites are normally visited together.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 金沢城. Its kana reading is かなざわじょう, and its romaji is Kanazawa-jō.

The name breaks down into three characters:

金 — read kana here, though the character's more familiar readings are kin or kane, meaning "gold" or "metal." In this place name it functions as a phonetic element rather than a literal one.

沢 — read zawa here (the base reading is sawa, voiced to zawa in compound). It means "marsh," "swamp," or "mountain stream." The combination 金沢 is therefore something like "golden marsh," a name that predates the castle and referred to the surrounding settlement.

城 — read jō, meaning "castle." This is the standard kanji for a Japanese fortress and appears in castle names across the country, from Osaka-jō to Himeji-jō. When it stands alone as a common noun it is usually read shiro.

Note that the reading given for the whole name, かなざわじょうこうえん (Kanazawa-jō Kōen), is the reading of the park that now occupies the site — 金沢城公園 — where 公園 (こうえん, kōen) means "park." The castle name itself stops at 金沢城.

Visiting and Context

Kanazawa is on the Hokuriku region of Honshu, reachable by shinkansen from Tokyo via the Hokuriku line. The castle park sits in the centre of the city, a short bus ride from Kanazawa Station. Entry to the grounds is free; the reconstructed turrets charge a modest admission and can be combined with a ticket for Kenroku-en.

For students of Japanese, the site is a compact lesson in the vocabulary of castles. Words worth carrying away include 天守 (てんしゅ, tenshu), the main keep; 櫓 (やぐら, yagura), a turret; 石垣 (いしがき, ishigaki), a stone wall; 門 (もん, mon), a gate; and 藩 (はん, han), a domain. The castle's own history supplies the rest: 加賀 (Kaga), 前田 (Maeda), and 金沢 (Kanazawa) are all names that recur constantly in Edo-period texts, and reading them in place is the fastest way to fix them in memory.