Mobetsu Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Hokkaidō

Mobetsu Castle (茂別館, Mobetsu-date) is one of the "twelve tate of southern Hokkaidō" (道南十二館), the fortified residences built by Japanese settlers (wajin) on the Oshima Peninsula during the Muromachi period. It stands at the southern tip of a plateau on the left bank of the Mobechi River, close to the sea, in present-day Hokuto. Tradition credits its foundation in 1443 to Andō Morisue, lord of Tosaminato, driven out of northern Honshū by the Nanbu. The site consists of two enclosures, the large tate (Ōdate) to the south and the small tate (Kodate) to the north, bounded to the west by the river cliff and to the north and south by natural ravines; massive earthen ramparts surround them on three sides. During the great Ainu uprising led by Koshamain in 1457, Mobetsu was, with Hanazawa, one of only two tate that did not fall. Designated a National Historic Site in 1982, it is one of the rare material witnesses of medieval Hokkaidō history; a shrine, Yafurai Tenmangū, now stands in the large tate.