Marugame Castle

Marugame Castle, located in Marugame City, Kagawa Prefecture, stands atop Mt. Kame (66 meters above sea level). Also known as “Kameyama Castle” or “Hourai Castle,” it is a classic hirayama-style (hilltop) castle. Its most striking feature is the four-tiered stone wall system, rising an impressive 60 meters, the tallest stone ramparts in Japan. The lower levels combine rugged nozura-zumi (natural stone piling) with sangi-zumi (rectangular blocks), while the upper slopes form the elegant “fan curve” (ōgi no kōbai), both beautiful and structurally sound.

At the heart of the honmaru stands the modest three-story, 15-meter-high tenshu (keep)—the smallest surviving original tenshu in Japan. Despite its size, its karahafu and chidori hafu gables, together with its white plaster walls, exude refined Edo-period charm. Alongside the First and Second Otemon Gates, it is designated an Important Cultural Property.

In the Edo period, samurai residences surrounded the inner moat, with an outer moat enclosing the wider area. Urban development later filled much of the outer moat, parts of which are now the “Outer Moat Greenway Park.” Today, the castle grounds form Kameyama Park, where the surviving keep, gates, and majestic stone walls create a unique historical landscape. Remarkably, Marugame Castle also preserves an Edo-period wooden architectural model (Marugame Castle Moku-zu), the only surviving three-dimensional castle model in Japan, now housed in the Marugame City Museum and designated a Tangible Cultural Property.