The Anekoji Clan Castle Ruins: Five Mountain Forts of Hida's Court-Born Lords
On 21 February 2024, the Agency for Cultural Affairs added five mountaintop ruins in Hida City, Gifu Prefecture, to its register of national historic sites under a single name: the Anekoji Clan Castle Ruins. The protected area totals roughly 842,521 square meters and binds together Furukawa Castle (624 m above sea level), Kojima Castle (617 m), Noguchi Castle (558 m), Mukokojima Castle (646 m), and Kotakari Castle (787 m). Each sits on a ridge above the Furukawa Basin, a flat pocket of arable land hemmed in by the mountains of northern Gifu and ringed, in the late medieval period, by a deliberate chain of fortifications.
The grouping is unusual. Most castle-site designations in Japan single out one fortress with a clear lord and dynasty. Here, five separate ruins were judged to belong together because they record, in the masonry and earthworks of their successive owners, the political turbulence of a single province over roughly two centuries.
Aristocrats Who Stayed in the Provinces
The Anekoji were not the warrior class one might expect to find behind such fortifications. They were court aristocrats descended from the northern branch of the Fujiwara, dispatched from Kyoto in the late 14th century as provincial governors (kokushi) of Hida and choosing, when their term ended, to remain. Of the many governors sent out across Japan in the late medieval period, only three abandoned the capital and put down roots in their assigned provinces: the Kitabatake in Ise, the Ichijo in Tosa, and the Anekoji here in Hida. Hida residents still refer to the trio as the Sankokushi, the "three provincial governors."
By the early 15th century the Hida branch had split into three houses (Furukawa, Kojima, and Mukai; the Mukai later also took the name Kotakari), each centred on its own valley and each, in time, on its own hilltop fort. Politically the family was weakened almost from the start. In 1411 they rebelled against the Muromachi shogunate, were defeated by the Kyogoku, the shogunal deputies for Hida, and never again held the governorship in any meaningful sense. The title clung to them, however, the way other former imperial appointments clung to the Kitabatake and the Ichijo: less a function than a memory.
Three Houses, Five Castles
The five ruins are easier to read on a map than on the ground. The Furukawa basin runs roughly north–south, with the Miyagawa River carving its centre. Furukawa Castle stands at the southern entrance, where the road into the basin from Takayama narrows; Kojima Castle commands the centre, overlooking the old highway and the village of Kojima below; Noguchi Castle sits at the northern end, watching the fork in the road that splits toward Etchu (modern Toyama) and toward Kamioka. Mukokojima Castle and Kotakari Castle guard the western flank: Mukokojima above the Shinotsutsumi settlement, Kotakari further inland on a steep summit that also marks the boundary with the mountainous country toward the Sea of Japan.
Among the five, Furukawa Castle is the easiest to reach and the most heavily modified. The main bailey survives at 624 m on a wooded hillside above the town of Furukawa, and visitors who reach the summit find a sharply cut kirigishi (artificial scarp) and, on the east side, a masugata koguchi, a boxed gateway built of fitted stone. Stone foundations remain beneath the platform that once supported a watchtower (yagura-dai). None of this style of fortification was native to Hida; it belongs to the latter half of the 16th century, when the province passed from one master to another in quick succession.
Why the Site Was Designated
The Agency for Cultural Affairs cited two reasons for the 2024 designation. The first is the rarity of the founding family. A court house that abandoned Kyoto, settled in a remote province, and ended up acting as kokujin, or local warrior lords, was uncommon enough that the surviving traces of their seats are themselves a piece of social history. The second is the legibility of later change. From around 1530, a southern clan called the Miki pushed into the Furukawa basin from their base near the modern city of Gero, and by the 1580s they had absorbed the Anekoji name and remodelled the older forts to suit the wider warfare of the late Sengoku period. Long parallel ditches (unejo karabori-gun), now visible at Noguchi and Mukokojima especially, were added to slow attackers down on the open slopes.
Then, in 1585, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's general Kanamori Nagachika invaded Hida on his lord's orders, defeated the Miki, and made Furukawa and Kojima the seats of his new rule. The other three castles were abandoned. Kanamori's masons rebuilt Furukawa's main entrance in dressed stone and introduced corner blocks laid in the alternating long-and-short pattern known as sangi-zumi, a technique tied to the Oda–Toyotomi era and unknown in the older Hida tradition of earthwork castles. Excavations carried out by the Hida City Board of Education between 2018 and 2022 found foundation stones beneath the tower platform at Furukawa, along with a small assemblage of kawarake earthenware cups from the Anekoji period itself.
Read together, the five sites preserve three layers of authority in legible succession: the noble-born Anekoji, the upstart Miki, and the Oda–Toyotomi-affiliated Kanamori. The Agency's report describes this as a "miniature of how regional Japan was governed at the close of the medieval period." It was on those grounds, rather than on aesthetic ones, that the designation was granted.
What There Is to See on the Ground
Each of the five sites repays a different kind of visit. Furukawa Castle is the most accessible and the only one where dressed stone survives in any quantity. The stone gateway on the east side of the main bailey is the single most photographed feature in the group, and the path up from the trailhead (about 25 minutes of moderate climbing) runs past sections of the surviving slope-cut.
Kojima Castle, on a 617 m ridge a short drive northeast, retains a larger masugata entrance with what archaeologists have identified as sangi-zumi cornering, the most decisive evidence in the basin of Kanamori-era reconstruction. Noguchi Castle, lower at 558 m, has perhaps the most striking earthworks of any of the five: a horseshoe of baileys around a central knoll, with two-tier moats cut into the ridges on either side and a complete fan of parallel trenches descending the slope toward the old highway. Mukokojima Castle, on the western flank, repeats the parallel-trench pattern, this time facing the Yumine Pass through which Kanamori's army was expected to come. Kotakari, the highest at 787 m, is the most remote and the least disturbed.
None of the five has been turned into a managed park. Trails to Furukawa, Kojima, and Noguchi are walkable in good weather, but signage is limited and brush can close in by mid-summer. Mukokojima and Kotakari are for hikers who are comfortable reading a topographic map; the Hida City Board of Education recommends seasonal visits and good footwear. Bears are present in the surrounding forests; a bell or radio is sensible.
Furukawa Town and the Surrounding Area
The natural base for visits is the small town of Hida-Furukawa, a 15-minute train ride north of Takayama on the JR Takayama Main Line. Its white-walled storehouses along the Setogawa canal, its sake breweries, and its early-April Furukawa Festival, whose okoshi-daiko drumming is inscribed on UNESCO's representative list of intangible cultural heritage, are reasons enough to stay overnight even without the castles.
The Michi-no-Eki Alp Hida-Furukawa, a roadside station on National Route 41, opened a permanent exhibition on the five forts in April 2025. Thirteen panels summarise the archaeological findings of the 2018–22 survey and include illustrations by the late castle artist Kagawa Gentaro. Visitors who read Japanese will find it the single most useful starting point; English signage is limited, but the maps are clear. A pamphlet on the trail to Furukawa Castle is available at the counter, and the path begins a quarter of an hour's walk from the parking lot.
Other detours worth making include the Hida City Museum, the cedar-walled Honko-ji temple at the centre of Furukawa, and, further afield, the Ema Clan Castle and Mansion Ruins in Kamioka, designated a separate national historic site in 1980 and a useful comparison piece for understanding how northern Hida was militarised at the same period.
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Q&A
- Can all five castle sites be visited in a single day?
- In principle yes, by car, but most visitors choose two or three. Furukawa and Kojima are the most rewarding for a first visit, since both preserve stone fortification from the Kanamori period. Noguchi adds the most dramatic earthworks. Mukokojima and Kotakari are best left for a return trip, ideally outside the summer growing season when the trails are clearer.
- Are there guided tours in English?
- Not on a regular basis. The Hida City Board of Education runs occasional Japanese-language guided walks and lectures, and the local tourism association can sometimes arrange a guide on request. The signage on the trails is in Japanese only at present, so visitors without the language are advised to read about the sites in advance.
- Why are five separate castles treated as one historic site?
- Because they were built and rebuilt as a coordinated defensive network rather than as independent strongholds. After the Anekoji split into three branches around 1400, each of the five forts watched a different approach to the Furukawa basin, and successive owners (the Miki and then the Kanamori) altered them in concert. The historical argument for the designation rests on reading them together.
- Is there an entrance fee?
- No. The sites are unenclosed mountain ruins on land partly owned by the city and partly by private parties. There is no gate, no attendant, and no fee, but visitors are asked to stay on the marked trails and to take their litter back down.
- When is the best time of year to visit?
- Late April through early June, and again from mid-October through early November, when the weather is settled and the undergrowth is low. Winter access is essentially impossible without snowshoes; Furukawa receives heavy snowfall from December through March.
Basic Information
| Name | Anekoji Clan Castle Ruins (Furukawa Castle Ruins, Kojima Castle Ruins, Noguchi Castle Ruins, Mukokojima Castle Ruins, Kotakari Castle Ruins) |
|---|---|
| Designation | National Historic Site (designated 21 February 2024) |
| Location | Hida City, Gifu Prefecture |
| Period | Muromachi to Sengoku (late 14th to late 16th century) |
| Total Area | approx. 842,521 m² |
| Elevations | Furukawa 624 m / Kojima 617 m / Noguchi 558 m / Mukokojima 646 m / Kotakari 787 m |
| Access | JR Takayama Main Line, Hida-Furukawa Station. For Furukawa Castle: Hida-Furukawa bus (Furukawa–Kamioka line) to Kammachi, then approx. 25 min on foot to the trailhead; approx. 25 min climb to the main bailey. The Michi-no-Eki Alp Hida-Furukawa is a 15-minute walk from the same trailhead and offers parking. |
| Admission | Free; no facilities on site |
| Note | Mountain paths only. Suitable footwear, bear bell, and seasonal caution recommended. |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs — National Designated Cultural Properties Database: Anekoji Clan Castle Ruins
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/401/00004186
- Cultural Heritage Online (Agency for Cultural Affairs / NII)
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/532974
- Hida City Official Site — National Historic Site Designation Announcement
- https://www.city.hida.gifu.jp/soshiki/32/59866.html
- Hida City Cultural Properties — Anekoji Clan Castle Group
- http://hida-bunka.jp/asset/anegakojishi/
- Hida City Tourism Official Site — Furukawa Castle Ruins
- https://www.hida-kankou.jp/spot/893
- Hida City Press Release — Michi-no-Eki Alp Hida-Furukawa Mountain Castle Information Corner (April 2025)
- https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000092.000120394.html
Last verified: 2026.05.18