Minato Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture d'Akita

In the Tsuchizaki district, in the north of present-day Akita City, Minato Castle was for two centuries the seat of the "Minato" branch of the Andō family, which settled there in 1395. A late tradition, recorded in the Meiji era, dates its construction to 1436, but no contemporary document confirms it. The two branches of the Andō were later reunited under Andō Chikasue, and Akita Sanehide made Minato his main residence, launching a major reconstruction in 1599 that was completed in 1601. The very next year, after Sekigahara, Sanehide was transferred to Shishido and Satake Yoshinobu received Akita. Judging the site too cramped to house his many retainers, the new lord began Kubota Castle in 1604 and had Minato demolished. The Tsuchizaki Shinmei-sha shrine has stood on the grounds since 1620. Nothing is visible above ground: only the excavations carried out from 2005 to 2008 uncovered a moat and artefacts from the Azuchi-Momoyama period, while a monument commemorates the Andō of Minato.