- Type
- Ruin
- Origins
- 1238 · 13th century per Wikidata: founding, first mention or construction
- Location
- Yamagata Prefecture, Japan
- Coordinates
- 37.9096°, 140.1050°
History
Tradition holds that the first castle was built here in 1238 by Nagai Tokihiro, son of a senior retainer of the Kamakura shogunate, although no documents or finds confirm it. From around 1400 the area was ruled by the Date, and in 1548 Date Harumune made Yonezawa his main seat; the famous warlord Date Masamune was born in the castle. After a short period under the Gamō clan, the castle passed in 1598 to Uesugi Kagekatsu, who kept only Yonezawa after his defeat at Sekigahara and rebuilt the castle thoroughly in 1608–1613. Wary of the Tokugawa shogunate's suspicion, the clan built neither a keep nor stone walls; two three-storey towers on the earthen ramparts took the keep's place. The Uesugi lived here until the Meiji Restoration; the buildings were demolished in 1873, and the next year the castle grounds became a public park.
What to see
The former main bailey, still ringed by its moat and earthworks, holds the Uesugi Shrine to Uesugi Kenshin, rebuilt in 1923, and the Keishōden treasure house with clan heirlooms, along with statues of Kenshin and other Uesugi lords. In the former second bailey the Uesugi Museum (Denkoku no Mori) keeps national treasures including Kanō Eitoku's Rakuchū rakugai-zu screens and the clan archive, while the former residence of the Uesugi counts is now a restaurant with a garden. A snow lantern festival takes place in February, and the red Hishimon bridge over the moat was under repair in 2025.
Wikipedia article Wikidata Q11262656
Popularity: articles about this site in 10 Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia language editions and others).