- Seat side
- Seat A sideSeat A on both 16- and 8-car trains.
- Where to look
- East of Okayama Station
THE STORY
Why Okayama is called the Crow Castle
If Himeji’s white towers have caught your eye, Okayama Castle offers a striking contrast. Black wooden boards cover its main tower, giving it the nickname Crow Castle, or Ujo in Japanese. A castle keep is the main fortified tower: here, its dark walls and layered roofs are the clues to watch for between the city’s buildings.
The castle took shape under Ukita Hideie, a samurai lord who served Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the military leader who unified Japan in the late 1500s. Excavations have uncovered gold-covered roof tiles from Hideie’s time. Against black walls, those tiles would have made a bold display of his power. They explain another nickname: Golden Crow Castle.
The keep also breaks with the neat symmetry you might expect. Its base and first floor have five unequal sides, thought to fit the shape of the hill beneath them. You cannot see that ground plan from the train, but it is a reminder that castles were shaped by the land as well as their builders.
The old keep was destroyed during the Second World War; the tower standing today was rebuilt in 1966. This gives it a different story from Himeji’s original wooden keep. One preserves an old building, while the other restores a familiar shape to the city. Both help you recognise the samurai castles among modern rooftops as you travel through western Japan.
WHAT TO SEE
Finding it from the window
Look for the dark keep east of Okayama Station. It is on your left before arrival when travelling west, and on your right after departure when travelling east. The tracks curve here, so use the Seat A label rather than a compass direction.
The keep is roughly 1.5–1.8 km from the track. Watch around the Asahi River crossing and the approach to the station; modern buildings interrupt the view. These telephoto photographs help identify the roof and walls. To the eye, it is a small castle among the city buildings.
PHOTO TIPS
Finding the dark keep among the buildings
Do not expect the keep to look as large through the window as it does in a telephoto picture. Use the wider photo to place it among the buildings and hills, then the closer photo to learn the dark walls and roof shape.
Watch through the Seat A side east of Okayama Station: before arrival westbound and after departure eastbound. Train speed and foreground buildings change the viewing window, so follow the city skyline through this stretch instead of relying on a fixed number of seconds.
ON THE MAP
The castle and the railway
The train viewpoint is a representative point on the railway, rather than the exact location of each photograph or a visibility boundary.
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