Ao Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Toyama

Set on the Jōgasaki headland, an isolated hill jutting toward Toyama Bay at the northern edge of the Himi plain, Ao Castle watched over both the road to the Noto Peninsula and coastal shipping. Its founding is undated, but tradition attributes it to the Kikuchi, a local lordly family descended from the Kikuchi of Higo, and excavations have yielded pottery from the 15th and 16th centuries. In the late Sengoku period, Kikuchi Takekatsu and his son Yasunobu held their seat here: first loyal to Uesugi Kenshin, they came under the authority of Oda Nobunaga and then Sassa Narimasa. After Nobunaga's death they joined Maeda Toshiie; Sassa attacked the stronghold, but Maeda reinforcements drove him back, and the famous Maeda Keijirō stayed here for a few months in 1585. Confirmed in a fief of 10,000 koku, the Kikuchi kept the castle until the death of their head in 1596, shortly before it was abandoned. Now a Toyama Prefectural Historic Site, the hill preserves the outline of its terraces and a broad view over the bay.