Maizuru Castle Park

Overview

Kōfu Castle (甲府城, Kōfu jō) is a Japanese castle in the city of Kōfu, in Yamanashi Prefecture, in the Chubu region of Japan. The site is also known as Maizuru Castle, and the grounds as they exist today are called Maizuru Castle Park (舞鶴公園, Maizuru-jō Kōen). The castle was begun in 1583, in the Azuchi–Momoyama period (1573–1603), the era of the Tenshō 天正 nengō, or era name, in its eleventh year. The site has been protected as a National Historic Site since 2019, and it is listed among the 100 Fine Castles of Japan.

History

Construction of Kōfu Castle began in 1583, the eleventh year of Tenshō. The castle is associated with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who by that decade had established himself as the dominant political and military figure in Japan. The site sits in the Marunouchi district of Kōfu, the city that had grown up around the earlier provincial capital of Kai Province.

The castle's position in the wider landscape of Japanese fortification is worth stating plainly. The Azuchi–Momoyama period saw a shift from mountain strongholds to large, flatland castles with stone walls and towers, built as administrative centres as much as military ones. Kōfu Castle belongs to that generation of construction. Its surviving stonework, rather than any original building, is what defines the site today.

What Stands There Today

The castle site is preserved as Maizuru Castle Park. Among the structures and features recorded at the site is the Shaonto Tower, alongside the castle remains themselves. The park occupies the castle grounds in the Marunouchi district of Kōfu.

The designation as a National Historic Site, granted in 2019, places the site under legal protection for its archaeological and historical value. The listing among the 100 Fine Castles of Japan places it within a national register of castles selected for their significance and their state of preservation. Visitors encounter a park built over and around the earthworks and stone walls of a late sixteenth-century castle, in the middle of a modern city.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's Japanese name is 甲府城. Its reading in kana is こうふじょう, and in romaji it is Kōfu jō.

The name breaks down into three kanji.

甲 — read here as こう (kō). This character originally referred to a shell or carapace, and by extension to the first of the ten celestial stems, an old Chinese-derived counting system. In place names it carries no everyday meaning; it is a fixed element of the name Kai (甲斐, Kai), the old province that corresponds to modern Yamanashi Prefecture.

府 — read here as ふ (fu). This character means a seat of government, an administrative centre, or a prefectural or urban office. It is the same character used in 大阪府 (Ōsaka-fu, Osaka Prefecture) and 京都府 (Kyōto-fu, Kyoto Prefecture). In this name it marks the place as an administrative town.

Together, 甲府 (Kōfu) is the city's name: the government seat of Kai. The reading is irregular in the usual way of Japanese place names — 甲 is read kō rather than by its common Sino-Japanese reading kan, and 府 is read fu.

城 — read here as じょう (jō). This character means castle or fortress. It appears in the names of castles across Japan, such as 大阪城 (Ōsaka-jō, Osaka Castle) and 姫路城 (Himeji-jō, Himeji Castle). When it follows a place name, it means "the castle of" that place. So 甲府城 is, literally, Kōfu Castle.

The park name works the same way. 舞鶴公園 (Maizuru-jō Kōen) is built from 舞 (mai), dance; 鶴 (zuru), crane, the bird; 城 (jō), castle; and 公園 (kōen), public park. The crane is a traditional symbol of longevity and good fortune, and "dancing crane" is a common poetic image in Japanese place names. The castle is therefore known as Maizuru Castle, the Crane Castle, and the park around it takes that name.

For learners, the useful pattern is this: Japanese castle names are almost always a place name plus 城, read jō. Learn the place name and the suffix, and the castle name follows.

Visiting and Context

Maizuru Castle Park stands at the coordinates 35.6652889, 138.5713389, in the Marunouchi district of Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture. The site is a National Historic Site, protected since 2019, and is counted among the 100 Fine Castles of Japan.

For readers of Japanese, the site offers a compact lesson in how the language handles place and history. The name 甲府城 combines an old province name, an administrative term, and the standard castle suffix. The alternative name 舞鶴公園 adds a poetic image on top of the same ground. Both names are in active use, and both appear on signage and in guidebooks.

The castle's date of 1583 places it firmly in the Tenshō era, in the last decades of the Azuchi–Momoyama period, and in the career of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. That context — a castle begun in the 1580s, in a provincial capital, under the political order Hideyoshi was building — is the frame in which the surviving stone walls and the park around them are best understood.