Naegi Castle

Naegi Castle is a mountain castle located in Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Prefecture. It is a ruin whose popularity has grown in recent years as the “Castle in the Sky,” characterised by stone walls that skilfully incorporate giant rocks atop the sheer cliffs of the Kiso River. The castle was built on the group of giant rocks of Shiroyama, at an elevation of 432 m, and its distinctive construction technique of fitting stone walls into the cracks and gaps of the rock is rare even by national standards.

The Tōyama clan (the Naegi Tōyama family), who governed Naegi Castle, were a branch of the Tōyama clan, a distinguished family of Mino, and for twelve generations throughout the Edo period they ruled the small Naegi domain as its lords. Using Naegi, which lies on the border between Mino and Shinano, as their base, the Tōyama controlled the mountainous area of the Kiso River basin in practice. Although the Naegi domain was a small domain of just 10,000 koku, it survived until the end of the Bakumatsu period as a domain that possessed a castle.

The greatest feature of the castle is the fused landscape of giant rocks and stone walls spreading across the tenshudai. The tenshu of Naegi Castle, which used giant rocks as natural foundation stones with stone walls and wooden buildings piled upon them, shows the pinnacle of stone wall techniques from the late Sengoku period to the early Edo period. The buildings were demolished in Meiji 4 (1871), but the stone walls remain in good condition, and they attract visitors from across the country as a spectacular sight, especially in the autumn foliage season and in the early morning when the sea of clouds forms.

In Heisei 29 (2017), it was selected as one of the Zoku Nihon Hyaku Meijō (Continued 100 Castles of Japan), and as a scenic castle ruin it is popular among younger generations as well.