Edo Castle, Tokyo - largest castle in Japan (Part 1)

Outline of Edo Castle

Edo Castle, or Edo-jo (江戸城), located in the very center of Tokyo, was initially created in 1457 by a prominent lord called Ota Dokan. It became the residence of Tokugawa shoguns and their shogunate office from the 17th to 19th century, and when the feudal times came to an end, it was turned into the Tokyo Palace of the emperor who moved in here from Kyoto. Most of the central grounds of the castle remains to this day, except for the area lying to the west of Tokyo Station which has been converted into a business district with skyscrapers. Beside this central area, there used to be a number of moats and dozens of large gates accompanied by stone walls in the area corresponding to the whole Chiyoda and Chuo wards.

Since it's a huge castle, I'm going to spend six articles for it. This article is the first.

Part 1: Outline of Edo Castle (this page)
Part 2: Kokyo Gaien & Wadakura Funsui Koen
Part 3: Kokyo Higashi Gyoen
Part 4: the Imperial Palace & Inui Street
Part 5: Kitanomaru Koen
Part 6: Outer moats

Miniature Model of Edo Castle

Below is a miniature model of Edo Castle exhibited in Edo-Tokyo Museum at Ryogoku.

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Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida-ku, Tokyo

A Museum with lots of models of buildings once exisited in Edo-Tokyo area.

In this museum, a model showing part of shoguns' residence is also displayed.

Map of Edo Castle

Shown in this map are locations of remaining gates and other major structures. It's less detailed than each entry and the names of moats are not shown, because it gets too messy if I put all of them on this map. Also, what's shown in part 6 is not marked here. See each entry for details.

Area guide [Tokyo's Very Core]

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Sakuradamon Gate