Tōdō Takatora
Japanese daimyo (1556-1630)
Tōdō Takatora (藤堂 高虎; February 16, 1556 – November 9, 1630) was a Japanese daimyō of the Tōdō clan from the Azuchi–Momoyama to Edo periods. He rose from relatively humble origins as an ashigaru (a light foot soldier) to become a daimyō.
During his lifetime he changed his feudal master seven times and worked for ten people, but in the end he rendered loyalty to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who became his last master.
Tōdō Takatora is famous for excellence in castle design. He is said to have been involved in building as many as twenty castles, including Edo Castle, Wakayama Castle, Uwajima Castle, Imabari Castle, Iga Ueno Castle and Sasayama Castle.
It is mentioned in the historical records that Tōdō Takatora was a large man with around 190 cm in height. After his death, historical records stated that Takatora'a body was covered with lesions and battle scars, and some of his fingers were torn off and had no nails.
Biography
Tōdō Takatora was born in 1556 in Ōmi Province. The precise place of his birthplace was in Tōdō village, Inukami-gun, east of Lake Biwa.
Takatora hailed from a Tōdō clan branch which descended from a samurai named Kagemori Todo who served an imperial court noble in the 14th century.
“Tōdō Takatora” enters the record as japanese daimyo (1556-1630). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tōdō, Takatora and Japanese can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1377984. VIAF identifies the subject as 6354755. The Library of Congress control number is n85032148. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1556 and 1630.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tōdō Takatora” 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.