Takatō Castle
home of the lords of the domain
Takatō Castle (高遠城, Takatō-jō) is a Japanese castle located in the city of Ina, southern Nagano Prefecture, Japan. At the end of the Edo period, Takatō Castle was home to a cadet branch of the Naitō clan, daimyō of Takatō Domain. The castle was also known as Kabuto Castle (兜山城, Kabuto-jō). Built sometime in the 16th century, it is now largely in ruins.
Layout
Takato Castle is located on a hill in the former Takatō Town on the eastern edge of central Ina Valley in southern Nagano Prefecture. The location was a crossroads on the Akiba Kaidō, a highway connecting Tōtōmi province with the Suwa region of Shinano and Kai Province and a road which led to the western portion of the Ina valley and Mino Province. When viewed from the standpoint of Kai Province, the area was a key point in the control of southern Shinano. The castle site overlooks the confluence of the Mibugawa River and the Fujisawa River, which forms part of its natural defenses. Deep trenches, earthen ramparts and stone walls in concentric rings form the defensive structures in a style typical of construction under Takeda Shingen. The Central Bailey (Hon-maru) was protected to the northwest and northeast by the Second Bailey (Ni-no-maru) and Third Bailey (San-no-maru) along with four enclosures: the Suwa-kuruwa ( 諏訪曲輪 ), Sasa-kuruwa ( 笹曲輪 ), Minami-kuruwa ( 南曲輪 ) and Hōdōji-kuruwa ( 法幢寺曲輪 ).
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11672954. Authority coordinates are 35.833, 138.063. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Takatō Castle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.