Shimotabaru Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Shimotabaru Castle (下田原城, Shimotabaru-gusuku) is a stone enclosure from the era of island chiefdoms, perched on a cliff about 25 metres high overlooking the north coast of Hateruma, Japan's southernmost inhabited island, in the Yaeyama archipelago (Taketomi town, Okinawa Prefecture). The site measures about 150 metres east to west and 100 metres north to south. Its walls, dry-laid from rough blocks of coral limestone, define a series of about eight adjoining enclosures, together with a lookout post, a small stone chamber and a well. Neither its builder nor its exact date is known, but fragments of Chinese celadon found on the site point to occupation in the 15th and 16th centuries, when local chiefs vied for the islands before the revolt of Oyake Akahachi, a native of Hateruma, in 1500. Spared by the fighting of 1945, the ensemble is remarkably well preserved, which earned it designation as a National Historic Site in 2003, the first in Taketomi. Laid out as a small park (Buribuchi Park) after 1972, it is now partly overgrown by subtropical vegetation.