North Yamaguchi · HagiNo.591★★★Open in map →
Hagi Castle Town
The castle town of the Choshu domain, still standing on its Edo street plan. Walled lanes, a domain merchant's house and the birthplaces of men who made the Meiji Restoration sit within a few blocks of one another, and the streets themselves cost nothing to walk.
- FromHigashi-Hagi Station (JR San'in Line)
- ~25 minJR San'in Line, then a walk
- Hagi Castle Town
Where it is
13 more notes in Yamaguchi · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Edoya lanea samurai-quarter lane walled on both sides, straight as the surveyors left it
- Enseijia combined shrine and temple standing on the lane, open to the street
- Kikuya lanethe whitewashed lane the town is photographed on, running between plastered walls
- Kikuya Housethe home of a merchant who supplied the domain, kept as a house rather than a display
- Birthplace of Takasugi Shinsakua modest lot on the same block, marked and open, where the Kiheitai's founder grew up
How to actually get there
- Higashi-Hagi Station, then west on foot into the old town.
- Walk Edoya lane past Enseiji and the former Kido house.
- Turn into Kikuya lane for the whitewashed walls and the merchant's house.
- Finish at the birthplace of Takasugi Shinsaku and loop back toward the castle grounds.
- JR San'in Line to Higashi-Hagi
- Higashi-Hagi is the station for the town centre, on the JR San'in Line. Trains along this coast are few and far between, so the timetable rather than the distance is what decides the shape of your day.
- Return from Higashi-Hagi Station
- Walk back east through the old merchant streets to Higashi-Hagi Station. Read the departure board when you arrive rather than after the walk, because the last useful services on this line run earlier than the town's evening suggests.
About the place
Hagi was laid out on a grid, and the grid never moved. The merchant quarter and the samurai quarter sit where the domain put them, separated by lanes narrow enough that two people with umbrellas have to negotiate. Kikuya, Edoya and Iseya lanes enclose the block most visitors walk first. Along them stand the house of a merchant who supplied the domain, the birthplace of Takasugi Shinsaku and the former home of Kido Takayoshi. Whitewashed walls and plastered storehouse fronts run most of the way, which is why the town photographs the way it does.
How to enjoy it
The lanes are public streets, so the town works as a morning circuit before the houses open and again late in the afternoon when the light comes down the white walls. Inside the houses there are opening hours and ticket desks; outside there are neither. Pick up one of the Edo-period map reprints before you start, because the pleasure of this place is discovering that the map is still correct.
Background & history
The men who took the shogunate apart learned their politics in these streets. Yoshida Shoin taught at a small school on the edge of town, and his students, Takasugi Shinsaku among them, went from Hagi to the centre of the Meiji Restoration. The town they left stopped growing, which is the reason it is still legible. In 2015 the castle town was inscribed on the World Heritage list within the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, alongside other properties in and around Hagi, and the old quarters are protected as a preservation district for traditional buildings.
Before you go
- Cash
- The lanes themselves are free to walk at any hour. The houses that are open to visitors take admission at their own entrances, and guided walks are arranged through the city rather than at the door.
- Before you go
- These are lived-in streets with residents behind the walls, so the usual courtesies about noise and doorways apply. The lanes are narrow, have no pavement, and cars do use them; step into a gateway rather than backing along the wall.
- Another way
- From Shin-Yamaguchi Station on the Shinkansen a direct bus runs to the Meirin Centre in the middle of Hagi, a short walk from the castle town. Local buses on the western loop stop at the Uragami Museum and castle-town entrance. By car it is a run north from the Emido interchange.
- After you get off
- From Higashi-Hagi Station the castle town lies about 1.7 km west, roughly twenty minutes on foot across the river and through the older merchant streets.