Nanao Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture d'Ishikawa

Clinging to the slopes of Mount Shiroyama, about 300 metres high, south of the city of Nanao, Nanao Castle overlooks the bay of the same name and Notojima Island. It ranks among the largest mountain fortresses of medieval Japan, counted with Kasugayama, Odani, Kannonji and Gassantoda among the great yamajiro of the archipelago. Seat of the Hatakeyama, governors of Noto Province since the late fourteenth century, the stronghold reached its full extent under Hatakeyama Yoshifusa, who made it his main residence in the early sixteenth century and drew craftsmen and merchants to settle at its foot. The site then stretched for nearly 2.5 km along the ridges, with a succession of enclosures separated by artificial valleys, embankments and dry moats. Weakened by struggles among vassals and by epidemics, the castle fell in 1577 to Uesugi Kenshin after part of the garrison turned traitor. Maeda Toshiie, appointed lord of Noto in 1581, soon chose to build a new castle at Komaruyama, and Nanao was abandoned around 1589. No building survives today, but the terraced stone walls, the platforms of the honmaru, ninomaru and sannomaru, and old wells can be discovered along a path beneath the cedars, with a history museum at the foot of the mountain.