Wakasa Onigajō Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Tottori

On the summit of Mount Tsurio (about 452 m), more than 200 m above the small town of Wakasa, Wakasa Onigajō Castle controlled the fork of the roads to Harima and Tajima provinces. Together with Tottori and Shikano, it counts among the three great castles of Inaba. The Yabe clan, from Suruga and settled here since the Kamakura period, held its stronghold here, documented from 1575. The castle was then fought over by Amago partisans and the Mōri, and served as a base for the Oda army during the conquest of Inaba. After the fall of Tottori in 1581, Kinoshita Shigekata received a 20,000-koku fief here, and Yamazaki Iemori moved in after 1600. The stone walls and the remarkably complex main enclosure date from this transition between the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Abandoned early in the Edo period, the castle was deliberately dismantled: its stone walls still bear the breaches made to put it out of use, a rare testimony to the 'one castle per province' rule. Designated a National Historic Site in 2008, it is listed among the Continued 100 Fine Castles of Japan. A car park lies about ten minutes' walk from the summit.