Map: GSI Japan Sendai Castle occupies Aobayama above the Hirose River, where Date Masamune began construction in 1601 while also creating the castle town that became Sendai. It was a governing center shaped by steep terrain, stone walls, ceremonial palaces, and a deliberate absence of a conventional main keep. Fires, Meiji military reuse, the 1945 air raid, postwar reconstruction, earthquakes, and archaeology have produced the present site. What survives is a layered ruin: original and repaired masonry, exposed or marked foundations, one surviving wall segment, reconstructed features, museums, memorials, and wide views.
