The story of Osaka Castle

In 1583 Toyotomi Hideyoshi began building a castle here, on the site of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji temple. He wanted it to mirror Oda Nobunaga's Azuchi Castle but surpass it in every way, with gold leaf on the sides to impress visitors. The work was completed in 1597, and Hideyoshi died the following year.

In 1614 Tokugawa Ieyasu besieged his son Hideyori here. The defenders, outnumbered about two to one, held the outer walls, but Ieyasu then had the outer moat filled. When Hideyori began restoring it in the summer of 1615, Ieyasu attacked again; the castle fell and the Toyotomi clan perished.

The Tokugawa rebuilt everything, and the great granite walls you see, laid in the 1620s without mortar, still carry the crests of the families who supplied the stones. Today's keep, five stories outside and eight inside, is a concrete reproduction whose restoration was completed in 1997, and inside it works as a modern museum.