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Old Fort Goryokaku And Goryokaku Tower

The End of Edo Shogunate

Goryokaku was built in the mid-19th century as a pentagram-shaped defense facility of the Edo Shogunate after the opening of the Hakodate port. There are 1,600 cherry trees in Goryokaku Park, and the 107-meter-high Goryokaku Tower on the south side of the park offers a panoramic view of Goryokaku.

After the Black Ship Incident in 1853, Japan was forced to open its doors to the ports of Hakodate 函館 in Hokkaido and Shimoda of Izu 伊豆下田. The Edo Tokugawa Shogunate, which was still in control of the country, began to build Goryokaku 五稜郭 in 1857 for the safety of Hakodate. It took seven years to complete this Castle in the Shape of a Pentagram, and the shogunate relocated the poorly guarded Hakodate Bugyousyo 箱館奉行所 into Goryokaku, from Hakodate Motomachi Park 函館元町公園.

The designer of the Goryokaku, Ayasaburo Takeda武田斐三郎, designed this Western-style fortification facility with reference to the design of European fortresses of the time, in order to avoid the dead ends often found in Japanese castles. Goryokaku was surrounded by a 30-Meter-Wide Moat, and the earth from the excavation of the moat was used to build a Defensive Earthen Wall around the castle. Five half-moon fortresses were originally designed to guard the entrances to the city, but only one of them was completed due to the reduced scale of construction.

Manywhere Trivia:
Actually, the Goryokaku of Hakodate is not unique, there is a similar unfinished Tsuruoka Castle Goryokaku in Saku City, Nagano Prefecture.

Bridge over the Moat

Goryokaku, which was originally intended to prevent foreigners from invading, became a battlefield for the Japanese Civil War. After the outbreak of the Boshin War 戊辰戦争, the retreated old Shogunate army occupied Goryokaku in October 1868. In 1869, the new government army launched a general attack on Hakodate, which ended with the victory of the new government army in May 1869, and Goryokaku became the end of the Edo Shogunate. The leader of the pro-shogun group Shinsengumi 新撰組, Hijikata Toshizo 土方歳三 also took part in the war, and was shot and killed while trying to rescue his comrades.

Manywhere Trivia:
The Boshin War was fought between the emerging emperor and the declining Edo shogunate, and as we all know, the shogunate lost. It was the end of isolation and the success of the Meiji Restoration that made Japan what it is today.

107-meter-tall Goryokaku tower

After the end of the Hakodate War, More than 20 Historical Buildings in Goryokaku were either destroyed or demolished, and 1600 cherry trees were planted in the Taisho period and opened to the public. 2006 Goryokaku restoration work was started, including Hakodate Bugyousyo 箱館奉行所 and a number of buildings, have been completed according to the original appearance of the Edo Period. Inside The Exhibition Rooms in Bugyousyo, the history of Hakodate since the opening of the port is also described in detail.

The 107-Meter-High Goryokaku Tower is located on the south side of Goryokaku Park, and the tower not only contains various commercial facilities, but also offers a 360-degree view of Goryokaku from the observation deck at the top of it.