Hirosaki Castle

Hirosaki Castle stands on a plateau in the centre of Hirosaki, facing Mount Iwaki to the west. Tsugaru Tamenobu, who carved out an independent domain in the north of Honshu, planned the castle, and his son Nobuhira completed it in 1611. It remained the seat of the Tsugaru lords for the whole Edo period.

The original five-storey keep was struck by lightning in 1627 and destroyed in the resulting explosion of its gunpowder store. For almost two centuries the castle had no keep. In 1810 the lord Tsugaru Yasuchika obtained permission to rebuild a corner turret, and the resulting three-storey building, completed in 1811, served in effect as the keep. It is the only original castle keep in the Tohoku region and one of twelve in Japan.

The keep is modest in size, but the castle grounds are extensive: three rings of moats, earthworks and stone walls enclose six baileys, and the surviving turrets and gates have kept their Edo-period form. Since the Meiji era the site has been a public park, planted from 1882 with cherry trees that have made it one of the country's great hanami destinations.

The castle was first called Takaoka and was renamed Hirosaki in 1628. Although the domain was far from the centres of power, it maintained a large castle, and the lords of the Tsugaru clan ruled from here until the abolition of the domains in 1871.

The park opened to the public in 1895, and cherry trees were planted from the late nineteenth century; they include what is said to be the oldest surviving Somei Yoshino tree in Japan, planted in 1882. In 2015, to repair the bulging stone walls beneath it, the keep was lifted and moved on rails to a temporary position in the inner bailey — a traditional technique called hikiya — and it was moved back onto its rebuilt base in 2026.

The Hirosaki Cherry Blossom Festival, held from late April to early May, draws visitors from all over Japan. The castle park's trees bloom later than those in Tokyo, and the combination of the white keep, the red Gejō bridge, the moats and the distant snow-capped Mount Iwaki is one of the classic images of spring in the north. The park's gardeners are known for a pruning method borrowed from apple growing, which keeps the old trees vigorous.

The castle is also the setting of the Snow Lantern Festival in February and a chrysanthemum and autumn-leaf festival in autumn. In early August the Hirosaki Neputa festival parades illuminated fan-shaped floats through the city below the castle.