Saga Castle
Japanese castle in Saga city, Saga prefecture
Saga Castle (佐賀城, Saga-jō) is a Japanese castle located in Saga City, Saga Prefecture, Japan. It is a hiraijirō, a castle built on a plains rather than a hill or mountain, and is surrounded by a wall rather than being built above a stone base. Saga castle was home to the Nabeshima clan, daimyō of Saga Domain. It was also known as "Submerged Castle" (沈み城, Shizumi-jō).
History
The location of Saga Castle was originally a fortified village under the control of the Ryūzōji clan, warlords of a small area of northern Kyūshū in the Muromachi period. After Ryūzōji Takanobu was defeated by a coalition of Shimazu and Arima forces in 1584, his retainer Nabeshima Naoshige gained control of the castle. Naoshige allied the clan with Toyotomi Hideyoshi and gained personal distinction during the Japanese invasions of Korea, during which time he befriended noted castle architect Katō Kiyomasa and future Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Following the Battle of Sekigahara, the Nabeshima clan was confirmed in its holdings in Hizen province, and Naoshige’s son, Nabeshima Katsushige became 1st daimyō of Saga Domain. Naoshige began work on rebuilding the castle with the approval of the Tokugawa Shogunate beginning in 1602, with the work completed under Katsushige by 1611. The original structure included a five-storey donjon surrounded by a system of 80-metre wide moats.
The public source identifies “Saga Castle” as japanese castle in Saga city, Saga prefecture. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Saga, Castle and Japanese.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1071095. VIAF identifies the subject as 256669347. Authority coordinates are 33.246, 130.302. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1584, 1602 and 1611.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saga 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.