Katsuyamadate Site
licensed photographOn-neko / CC BY-SA 4.0

Southwest Hokkaido · KaminokuniNo.869★★Open in map →

Katsuyamadate Site

— A fifteenth-century hillside stronghold above Kaminokuni

historyOff the trail — and worth it

A hillside castle site above the Japan Sea coast of southern Hokkaido, raised by a Japanese warlord in the late fifteenth century, where excavation brought up imported porcelain and Ainu bone tools from the same ground.

  1. FromHakodate
  2. ~1 hr 45 min by carCar, or Hakodate Bus via Kikonai
  3. Get off atKaminokuni stop (Hakodate Bus, Route 228)
  4. From there
  5. Katsuyamadate Site
Directions ↗

The sweet spot

This is not an unknown site. It holds a national historic designation, it has a guidance building with a scale model, and the objects dug out of it are Important Cultural Properties. It is quiet because the railway through Kaminokuni closed, the site sits up a hill above a small town, and the building at the top opens for only part of the year.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Mount Iou summitSoica2001 / Public domain
  1. Katsuyamadate guidance buildinga scale model, a computer-graphics reconstruction on film, and seven excavated graves rebuilt in place below the floor
  2. Mount Iou summita short climb above the car park, with the Japan Sea on one side and the town below on the other
  3. Iou grave fieldmedieval burials spread down the slope between the summit and the castle ground
  4. The castle terracesstepped platforms running toward the sea, with the site of the castle's Hachiman shrine at the upper end

How to actually get there

  1. Hakodate → Kaminokuni by Route 227 through Esashi (about 80 km, roughly an hour and three quarters by the town's reckoning).
  2. In the town, turn inland and climb Mount Iou to the car park beside the guidance building.
  3. Guidance building first for the model and the film, then up to the summit for the sea view.
  4. Walk back down through the grave field onto the castle terraces, then return the same way.
By car from Hakodate on Route 227 through Esashi
The town's own access page puts Hakodate to Kaminokuni at about 80 km and roughly an hour and three quarters on ordinary roads, crossing the peninsula north-west to Esashi and then turning south along the coast. From the town centre a road runs inland and climbs Mount Iou to the car park beside the guidance building.
The same road back, or south along the coast
No railway is left in Kaminokuni, so the return is the road you came in on. Anyone travelling by bus should settle the return departure before walking up the hill, because services along this stretch of coast are infrequent and the site is a climb away from the road.
Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Katsuyamadate stands on the slope of Mount Iou, west of the small town of Kaminokuni and a short way back from the Japan Sea. Takeda Nobuhiro, ancestor of the Matsumae lords who later governed this coast, set his stronghold on ground that falls away toward the water, so the works step down the hillside instead of ringing a keep. Nothing rises above ground now; what you walk is the shape of it, with the site of the castle's own Hachiman shrine near the upper end. The state lists it together with two other fortified sites in the same town under a single designation.

How to enjoy it

The guidance building keeps short hours, 10:00 to 16:00, and only from spring to early November. Take it first: the model and the film make sense of ground that is otherwise terraces in the grass. Then climb to the summit while the light is still on the water, and come back down through the grave field to the castle itself.

Background & history

Takeda Nobuhiro raised the castle in the second half of the fifteenth century, in the decades when Japanese settlers were pushing along a coast that was Ainu land. Digging has taken porcelain, metalwork, lacquer and worked bone from the same layers, and among the bone are tools of Ainu make, recovered inside the castle's own ground. The site was made a national historic site in 1977. Objects from the excavation are held as Important Cultural Properties, and a selection is shown in the guidance building at the top of the slope.

Before you go

Cash
The guidance building charged 200 yen for adults and 100 yen for school students at the time of checking, with lower group rates. The hillside itself — the summit, the grave field and the castle terraces — is open ground and costs nothing.
Before you go
The guidance building runs a season rather than a year: spring through to early November, 10:00 to 16:00, closed on Mondays and on the day after a public holiday. Check the current opening dates before you travel, as they are set year by year. Outside the season the hillside is still walkable, but nothing on it is staffed.
Another way
By bus, the town's access page routes visitors from Kikonai Station on the Hokkaido Shinkansen onto the Hakodate Bus service signed for Esashi Byoin-mae; from Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto the change is onto an Esashi Terminal bus and then a Kaminokuni-bound service.
After you get off
The Kaminokuni stop sits on Route 228 in the middle of the town. The site is above it to the west, on the slope of Mount Iou, which makes the last stretch a climb rather than a stroll — most people drive it or take a taxi from here.