Maruoka Castle

Overview

Maruoka Castle (丸岡城, Maruoka-jō) is a Japanese castle in Fukui Prefecture, in the Hokuriku region on the Sea of Japan coast. It was built in 1576, the fourth year of the Tenshō era, at the end of the Sengoku period — the century of civil war that ended with the unification of Japan under a single military government.

The castle stands in the Maruoka neighbourhood of the city of Sakai. It is a hirayama-style castle (平山城, hirayama-jō), a type built on a low hill rising out of flat ground rather than on a mountain peak or on the plain itself. Maruoka 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, and its grounds are also listed among Japan's Top 100 Cherry Blossom Spots.

History

Maruoka Castle was built in 1576, in Tenshō 4. The Tenshō era (天正, 1573–1592) covers the years in which Oda Nobunaga and then Toyotomi Hideyoshi broke the power of the regional warlords and brought the country under central control. The castle belongs to that period of consolidation: the Azuchi–Momoyama period (安土桃山時代, Azuchi–Momoyama jidai, 1573–1603), named after the two great castles of its rulers, Azuchi and Momoyama.

Under the Edo period (江戸時代, 1600–1868), when the Tokugawa shogunate governed a country divided into some 300 domains, Maruoka became the seat of Maruoka Domain (丸岡藩, Maruoka-han). A succession of daimyō (大名, great lords) held the castle as their headquarters, governing the surrounding territory from it. The castle was destroyed at some point in its history, and the present keep is a reconstruction rather than the original structure.

The castle gives its name to the Maruoka Kojō Matsuri (丸岡古城まつり, Maruoka Old Castle Festival), a local festival held at the site.

What Stands There Today

The castle's keep — the tenshu (天守), the main tower that forms the visual centre of any Japanese castle — is small by the standards of the great fortresses at Himeji or Osaka. It claims to be the oldest surviving castle keep in Japan. That claim is contested: both Inuyama Castle in Aichi Prefecture and Matsumoto Castle in Nagano Prefecture are put forward as the oldest, and the dispute turns on how the surviving structures are dated and how much of each was rebuilt.

The site is now a public park, and the grounds are known for their cherry trees. The combination of a small keep on a low hill and a dense planting of sakura (桜, cherry blossom) is what placed Maruoka on the Top 100 Cherry Blossom Spots list.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name is written 丸岡城.

• Kana reading: まるおかじょう
• Romaji: Maruoka-jō

Broken down character by character:

丸 — read maru in this name. The kanji means "round" or "circle". It is a very common element in Japanese place names and family names, and it also appears as a suffix on ship names. Here it is the first element of the place name Maruoka.

岡 — read oka in this name. The kanji means "hill" or "ridge". This is the character that tells you what kind of ground the castle was built on: a low rise. The place name Maruoka therefore means something like "round hill", and the castle takes its name from the place.

城 — read jō in this name. The kanji means "castle". On its own the character can also be read shiro, and that is the everyday spoken word for a castle; jō is the reading used when the character is attached to a name, as it is here. The same character appears in the names of every Japanese castle: 姫路城 (Himeji-jō), 松本城 (Matsumoto-jō), 犬山城 (Inuyama-jō).

So 丸岡城 is "the castle at Maruoka" — a place name plus the character for castle, which is the standard pattern for Japanese castle names.

The castle carries a second name: 霞ヶ城 (Kasumi-ga-jō), "Mist Castle". 霞 (kasumi) means "mist" or "haze", ヶ is a particle used in place names, and 城 is again "castle". According to the legend attached to the name, a thick mist rises whenever an enemy approaches the castle and hides it from view.

Visiting and Context

Maruoka Castle sits at coordinates 36.1523472, 136.2720972, in the Maruoka district of Sakai, Fukui Prefecture. The castle is the principal historical monument of the former Maruoka Domain, and the domain's name survives in the neighbourhood and in the castle's own name.

For readers of Japanese, Maruoka Castle is a useful case study in how castle names are built. The pattern is consistent: a place name, usually two kanji read with their native Japanese readings, followed by 城 read as jō. Learn to recognise 城 in a name and you can identify a castle even without knowing the place. Learn the place-name characters 丸 and 岡 and you can read the sign at the gate.

The site is also a reminder that "oldest" claims in Japanese castle history are rarely settled. Three castles — Maruoka, Inuyama and Matsumoto — are each argued to be the oldest surviving keep, and the answer depends on what counts as surviving and what counts as a keep. Maruoka's case rests on a small tower that has been damaged and repaired across the centuries, which is precisely why the question is difficult.