Odate Ruins

The Ōdate Site: A Hilltop Fort Where the Matsumae Clan Began

On a tongue-shaped plateau in the town of Matsumae, at the southern tip of Hokkaido, the earthen banks and grassed-over ditches of the Ōdate Site (Ōdate-ato) trace the outline of a fort that once governed the whole of Ezo, the old name for Hokkaido. The plateau sits 45 to 55 meters above the surrounding land at the foot of Mount Shōgun, bracketed by the Bakko ravine to the east and the Kodate ravine to the west, with the Ōmatsumae River running below. It was designated a National Historic Site on April 5, 1977.

The name itself records the layout. The promontory was split into two enclosures: a smaller one called the Kodate (roughly 30 by 100 meters) at the southern tip, and a larger one, the Ōdate (around 200 by 300 meters), to the north. A cut trench separated the two. People crossed a bridge at the Kodate-sawaguchi on the south side to enter, while the rear of the larger enclosure was closed off with palisades and a further ditch behind them. The lordly residence is thought to have stood in the Ōdate, and burnt material recovered from its northeastern corner hints at the fighting and fire that ended more than one chapter of the site's history.

One of the Twelve Forts of Southern Hokkaido

From the fifteenth century, merchants and minor lords from northern Honshu pushed across the strait into the Oshima Peninsula, the southern coast of Ezo, trading with and increasingly displacing the indigenous Ainu. A string of fortified bases known as the Dōnan Jūni-tate, the Twelve Forts of Southern Hokkaido, marked this expansion. Ōdate was one of them, and it became the most consequential.

Tradition holds that the fort traces back to the Muromachi period, founded by members of the Andō clan after they were beaten by the Nanbu clan and fled north into Ezo during the Kakitsu era (1441–1444). The Andō held authority over Ezo from their base across the water and installed a kinsman, Shimonokuni Sadasue, as castellan to act as their deputy on the island.

In 1456 a major Ainu uprising broke out under a leader named Koshamain, in part a response to the pressure of Wajin settlement and trade. Of the twelve forts, only Mobetsu and Hanazawa held out. The tide turned when Takeda Nobuhiro, a warrior serving as guest general to Kakizaki Suesige at Hanazawa in Kaminokuni, killed Koshamain and his son. Nobuhiro would be remembered as the first head of what became the Matsumae line. (Some accounts place the outbreak in 1457; the Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as 1456.)

Ōdate passed back into Andō hands but had a turbulent run of keepers. Sadasue's son Tsunesue proved so violent that his own kin forced him to take his life in 1496, and Aihara Suetane was sent to hold the fort in his place. In 1513 another clash with the Ainu, the Battle of Ōdate, destroyed the Aihara. The following year, 1514, Kakizaki Mitsuhiro, second head of the line then based at Kaminokuni, sailed across with a fleet of more than 180 small boats, took the fort, and renamed it Tokuyama-date.

Why the Site Matters

For four generations the Kakizaki ruled Ezo from this plateau: Mitsuhiro, Yoshihiro, Suehiro, and Yoshihiro the fifth, written with a different character. Under that fifth head the family won recognition as daimyo from Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and adopted the surname Matsumae. In 1606 they completed a new castle on lower ground to the south, Fukuyama-date, and moved out. Tokuyama-date was abandoned.

That sequence is the reason the fort is protected. It is the physical link between the scattered fifteenth-century trading forts and the Matsumae domain, the clan that would administer Ezo throughout the Edo period and whose castle at Fukuyama, finished in 1854, is the northernmost Japanese-style fortress ever built. Ōdate is where that long arc started. Because the ground has seen little full excavation, much of what lies beneath the turf remains an open question, which is part of why archaeologists and historians keep returning to it.

What You Will See Today

This is not a reconstructed castle with a paid entrance and a gift shop. The site has been left largely as it is, so what survives is the shape of the land itself: long earthen ramparts, the depression of the dry moat that once split the two enclosures, and the natural cliffs that made the position defensible. Reading those contours takes a little patience and rewards it. Standing on the high ground, you can still sense why a lord would choose this spur, with ravines on both flanks and a river guarding the approach.

A shrine, Tokuyama Daijingū, now occupies part of the site, and the climb up begins near it. The trailhead is genuinely easy to miss, and the path is not signposted in the way a major attraction would be. It is worth picking up a walking map from the Matsumae Town Local History Museum before you set out. One practical warning the town itself posts: brown bears are present in the area, so go prepared, make noise, and avoid dawn and dusk.

Around Matsumae

Ōdate sits about a kilometer northeast of Matsumae Castle, so the two pair naturally in a single visit. The castle, also called Fukuyama Castle, is the direct descendant of the fort on the plateau and the place the clan moved to in 1606. Matsumae is the only former castle town in Hokkaido, and its park is famous across Japan for cherry blossoms, with thousands of trees and a long succession of varieties that stretches the blooming season well into spring.

Nearby you will also find the Matsumae lords' family cemetery, the temples Ryūun-in and Hōgen-ji, and a living tradition, Matsumae Kagura, a ritual music and dance handed down in the area. Reaching Matsumae takes some planning, since the rail line closed decades ago. Most visitors drive or take a bus from Kikonai Station on the Hokkaido Shinkansen, roughly an hour and a half from Hakodate.