Kakunodate Castle

Kakunodate Castle is a mountain castle built on Kojosan Hill (also known as Komatsuyama) in the Senboku District of Ugo Province (present-day Kakunodate, Semboku City, Akita Prefecture), serving as a strategic political and military center of southern Dewa during the Sengoku period. The castle's founding dates to approximately Ōei 31 (1424), when the Tozawa clan under Tozawa Iemori relocated its seat to Komatsuyama Castle (Kakunodate Castle). Following internal clan conflicts, it became the headquarters of the Sengoku daimyo Tozawa clan. During the era of Tozawa Morisada (1566–1590), Kakunodate attained its greatest prosperity, and Morisada, excelling in both civil and military arts, earned the epithet "Kirin of Northern Ugo." Morisada died young at age 25, arresting the expansion of Tozawa power, though Kakunodate's cultural legacy was transmitted to later generations. Following the Battle of Sekigahara in 1602, Satake Yoshinobu, transferred from Hitachi Province (Ibaraki Prefecture), established Akita Domain (Satake Domain), bringing the Kakunodate area under Satake control. Subsequently, Ashina Yoshikatsu, a retainer of the Satake clan, organized the castle town in Genwa 6 (1620), and following the extinction of the Ashina clan, the Satake North family (Hokke) inherited and sustained it. In the early Edo period, Kakunodate Castle was abolished under the one-castle-per-domain law of 1615, but the castle town persisted as a samurai residential district, maintaining its renowned character as "the little Kyoto of the Michinoku." The samurai residential streets of Kakunodate are designated as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings and are celebrated as a destination for weeping cherry blossoms, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists annually. The castle ruins are protected as an Akita Prefectural Historic Site, with earthworks and trenches surviving on Kojosan Hill (Castle Hill). Kakunodate also served as a strategic junction on the trade route for iron and copper crossing the Ou Mountain Range, owing to its geographical position within the Hinokinai River basin. Dewa swordsmiths operated in the Kakunodate area, supplying blades to the warrior classes of the Tozawa and Satake clans. The Satake clan, originating from Hitachi Province, possessed deep expertise in Kanto sword culture, and sword appreciation and collecting flourished in the Kakunodate castle town.