Shimasoe-Ōzato Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture d'Okinawa

Perched about 150 metres above sea level on a coral limestone spur in the south of Okinawa Island, the gusuku of Shimasoe-Ōzato was the residence of the aji, local lords who ruled the eastern half of the Shimajiri region during the Three Kingdoms period. In the early 15th century Shō Hashi, setting out from Sashiki, seized it: the fortress then became a foothold for the unification of Ryūkyū and, after the court settled at Shuri, a secondary residence of the First Shō dynasty, said to rival Shuri in prestige. The site, about 270 metres east to west and 210 metres north to south, retains a double enclosure: the inner rampart, some six metres high, runs for about 175 metres, while sections of the outer wall survive to the west and north-east. A platform bears the foundation stones of a main hall. Heavily damaged in the Battle of Okinawa and by the post-war reuse of its stones, then turned into a park in the 1960s, the gusuku has been excavated since 1990 and was designated a National Historic Site in 2012.