Outline of Edo Castle
Edo Castle, or Edo-jo (江戸城), located in the very center of Tokyo, was initially created in 1457 by a prominent lord called Ota Dokan. It became the residence of Tokugawa shoguns and their shogunate office from the 17th to 19th century, and when the feudal times came to an end, it was turned into the Tokyo Palace of the emperor who moved in here from Kyoto. Most of the central grounds of the castle remains to this day, except for the area lying to the west of Tokyo Station which has been converted into a business district with skyscrapers. Beside this central area, there used to be a number of moats and dozens of large gates accompanied by stone walls in the area corresponding to the whole Chiyoda and Chuo wards.
Since it's a huge castle, I'm going to spend six articles for it. This article is the first.
- Part 1: Outline of Edo Castle (this page)
- Part 2: Kokyo Gaien & Wadakura Funsui Koen
- Part 3: Kokyo Higashi Gyoen
- Part 4: the Imperial Palace & Inui Street
- Part 5: Kitanomaru Koen
- Part 6: Outer moats
Miniature Model of Edo Castle
Below is a miniature model of Edo Castle exhibited in Edo-Tokyo Museum at Ryogoku.
In this museum, a model showing part of shoguns' residence is also displayed.
Map of Edo Castle
Shown in this map are locations of remaining gates and other major structures. It's less detailed than each entry and the names of moats are not shown, because it gets too messy if I put all of them on this map. Also, what's shown in part 6 is not marked here. See each entry for details.