Matsuyama Castle

Matsuyama Castle occupies the summit and slopes of Katsuyama, a wooded hill that rises directly out of the centre of Matsuyama. From the main enclosure the view extends over the city to the Seto Inland Sea and its islands. The castle is of the hirayama type, with its main defences on the hilltop and the lord's residence at the foot of the hill.

The main keep, three storeys high and connected by corridor turrets to smaller towers around an inner courtyard, forms a renritsu-shiki (connected) keep complex, a sophisticated type that survives in only a few castles. The keep itself dates from 1854, which makes it the youngest of the twelve original keeps in Japan, although its design follows the Edo-period model closely.

Most striking are the nobori-ishigaki, stone walls that climb from the hilltop down the slopes to the lower bailey, a defensive technique brought back by lords who had fought in Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea. Of the castle's buildings, 21 are Important Cultural Properties; many others lost to fire have been rebuilt in wood according to historical records.

Katō Yoshiaki, one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's generals who sided with Tokugawa Ieyasu at Sekigahara, began the castle in 1602 and moved his seat here from Masaki. The castle was completed under later lords, and from 1635 it was held by the Matsudaira (Hisamatsu) family, relatives of the Tokugawa, until the end of the Edo period. After a lightning strike destroyed the original keep in 1784, it was rebuilt and finished in 1854. Several buildings were lost to arson in 1933 and to air raids in 1945, and have since been reconstructed in traditional timber.

The castle is the symbol of Matsuyama and appears in the haiku of Masaoka Shiki, the city's most famous poet, and in accounts by Natsume Sōseki. Its keep, flying a large banner of the Matsudaira crest, is visible from most of the city centre.

The summit enclosure is one of Shikoku's leading cherry blossom spots in spring, and the castle hosts seasonal events and illuminations. Reconstructions in traditional carpentry since the 1960s make Matsuyama one of the most complete castle complexes in western Japan.