Guide to Samurai Residences

JCastle has made it's first major expansion beyond just castles - samurai residences! I have taken pictures of the homes and gates and added them to the individual castle profiles from time to time over the years, but I never tried to pull all the information together in a useful manner. I started t

Introducing the Guide to Samurai Residences

2/20/2018

JCastle has made it's first major expansion beyond just castles - samurai residences! I have taken pictures of the homes and gates and added them to the individual castle profiles from time to time over the years, but I never tried to pull all the information together in a useful manner. I started to take more notice of samurai residences (bukeyashiki) on my trips to Kanazawa and Matsushiro in late 2016. Recently, I tried to list up all the residences I've been to that had an actual house and realized it came to 34, well beyond my expectations. These are only places with an actual house. There are probably just as many sites that I've visited that have only a gate or storehouse remaining. I'll get to those some day in the future, but for now, here is a quick introduction to samurai residences and a list of the 34 documented on this site.

I cannot find any good books or really detailed websites about samurai residences, so most of the information on the Introduction page is based on my own observations and information I could gather from signs at the sites.

Introduction to Samurai Residences

List of Samurai Residences

There is a new menu item at the top of the page that gives you quick access to the introduction and a list of residences documented on this site.

For each castle with a related samurai residence, you'll see them linked below the profile information.

On each samruai residence profile page, you'll also see a little map that shows you the location of the castle and other extant samurai residences around it. Personally, I find this little map quite interesting.