Osaka Castle (Chikuma)

History

Located at an altitude of 990m and a relative height of 220m, Chikuma-Osakajō was a yamajiro fortification used by Osaka Village located on the plain below.

Visit Notes

Chikuma-Osakajō was a nice little site to visit. I wasn't sure if I could find anything and so was pleasantly surprised that I was able to identify several features, including evidence of vernacular construction methods. The bulk of the ruins consist of the shukuruwa (main bailey) surrounded by dorui (earth-piled ramparts). The dorui reaches the whole away around the enclosure, being perforated by a koguchi (gate) ruin. It seemed that the path leading from the koguchi would go all the way down to Osaka Village, although I came from the mountain road via Ôike Village. Opposite the koguchi the dorui is tallest, still standing about two meters above the enclosure. At the back of the shukuruwa is a horikiri (trench cutting into the mountain's ridge line). I began climbing further up the mountain but couldn't find anything else apart from a depression on the ridgeline which might've represented a deformed trench ruin.

Gallery

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Castle Profile
English Name	Chikuma Osaka Castle
Japanese Name	筑摩小坂城
Founder
Year Founded
Castle Type	Mountaintop
Castle Condition	Ruins only
Historical Period	Pre Edo Period
Artifacts	Dorui, Koguchi, Horikiri, Shukuruwa
Features	trenches
Visitor Information
Access	Nearest Station is Endou Station on the Kamikouchi Line. I cycled.
Visitor Information	24/7 free; mountain
Time Required	40 minutes
Location	Yamagata, Nagano Prefecture
Coordinates	36° 9' 14.18" N, 137° 51' 17.53" E
Loading map... {"type":"TERRAIN","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps","width":"auto","height":"200px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"Castlemarker.png","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":6,"layers":[],"controls":[""],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":36.153938888889,"lon":137.85486944444,"icon":"../images/1/1e/Castlemarker.png"}]}
Admin
Added to Jcastle	2020
Contributor	ART
Admin Year Visited	Viewer Contributed

1.00

(2 votes)

Add your comment

Jcastle.info welcomes all comments. If you do not want to be anonymous, register or log in. It is free.

Sort by date Sort by score

Enable comment auto-refresher