Matsumoto Castle

Matsumoto Castle stands on the flat floor of the Matsumoto Basin, protected not by a hill but by wide moats — the only flatland castle among Japan's twelve surviving original keeps. Its main keep, five tiers on the outside and six storeys within, was built in the early 1590s by Ishikawa Kazumasa and his son Yasunaga, who held Matsumoto under Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

The keep complex consists of five buildings: the main keep, the smaller Inui keep linked to it by a covered passage, and, added around 1633 in a more peaceful age, the Tatsumi annex turret and the Tsukimi-yagura, an open-sided moon-viewing pavilion with a vermilion balustrade. The contrast between the defensive keep, with its gun ports and stone drops, and the elegant pavilion expresses the change from the age of warring states to the Edo peace.

The walls are clad in boards finished with black lacquer, which gives the castle its dark appearance against the white plaster above and the mountains behind. The popular nickname 'Crow Castle' is widely used, although the castle's management notes that it has no basis in historical records.

The site was first fortified in 1504 as Fukashi Castle by the Ogasawara clan. After the fall of the Takeda, Ogasawara Sadayoshi recovered it in 1582 and renamed it Matsumoto. When Tokugawa Ieyasu moved to the Kanto in 1590, Hideyoshi installed Ishikawa Kazumasa, who with Yasunaga built the present keep and castle town.

In 1872 the keep was sold at auction for demolition. Local leaders led by Ichikawa Ryōzō organised exhibitions inside it and used the proceeds to buy it back. As the keep began to lean, the headmaster Kobayashi Unari raised funds for the Meiji restoration of 1903–1913. The castle became a Historic Site in 1930 and a National Treasure in 1936, confirmed under the new law in 1952; a full dismantling and restoration followed from 1950 to 1955.

Matsumoto Castle is the emblem of its city and of Nagano Prefecture, and its survival is credited to ordinary townspeople who saved it twice in the Meiji era. The castle grounds host festivals through the year, among them the Matsumoto Castle Taiko Festival of drumming in summer, torchlit noh performances and the castle town's winter illuminations.

Together with Himeji, Inuyama, Hikone and Matsue, it is one of the five castles whose keeps are National Treasures, and it is often compared with Himeji: the white heron of Kansai and the black castle of the mountains. The view of the keep reflected in the moat with the snow-capped Northern Alps behind is one of Japan's best-known castle images.