Himeji Castle
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How it came to be
In 1333 Akamatsu Norimura, military governor of Harima Province, fortified Himeyama hill, and in 1346 his son Sadanori replaced the fort with Himeyama Castle. The Kuroda clan remodelled it into Himeji Castle by 1561, and in 1581 Toyotomi Hideyoshi added a three-storey keep.
After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu gave the castle to his son-in-law Ikeda Terumasa. Ikeda pulled down Hideyoshi's keep and rebuilt the whole complex from 1601 to 1609 with three moats, at an estimated 2.5 million man-days of labour. Honda Tadamasa added buildings from 1617, and today 83 buildings survive, with a main keep 46.4 m tall.
The castle was abandoned in 1871 and slated for demolition, but army colonel Nakamura Shigeto saved it. In the 1945 bombing of Himeji a firebomb that landed on the top floor failed to explode, and the castle came through the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake almost undamaged. In 1993 it became one of Japan's first World Heritage Sites.
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