Famous Landmarks in Fukuoka
A port city where a 757 shrine, a 1607 castle and a 1989 broadcast tower mark three eras.
Fukuoka's landmarks trace the city's long role as a gateway to the Asian mainland, spanning a Shinto shrine founded in 757 to a broadcasting tower raised on reclaimed bay-front land in 1989. Kushida Shrine sits inland in Hakata-ku, the old core of the city, while Fukuoka Castle occupies Fukusaki hill at the centre, its early-1600s walls, gates and watchtowers now enclosed within a public park after most of the keep disappeared. Fukuoka Tower stands apart from both, on land pushed out into Hakata Bay during the city's later growth into an industrial and commercial hub. Between them the three sites span thirteen centuries, setting an old inland core against a manufactured seafront skyline.
Fukuoka Tower
1989 · Nikken Sekkei
A single slender tower rising 234 metres straight out of a flat reclaimed shoreline, with nothing of comparable height nearby; its main observation deck sits about halfway up, at 123 metres, giving a 360° view over the bay it stands beside.
Fukuoka Tower is a 234-metre broadcasting and observation tower in the Momochihama district, built on land reclaimed from Hakata Bay. Completed in 1989 after fourteen months of construction, at a cost of about ¥6 billion, it was designed by the firm Nikken Sekkei. Its main observation deck, at 123 metres, offers a 360° view of the surrounding area and is busiest at sunset. It is described as the tallest seaside tower in Japan.
- Construction took only fourteen months and cost roughly ¥6 billion, about US$45 million at 1989 prices.
- It was built on land reclaimed from Hakata Bay in the Momochihama district.
- It is described as the tallest seaside tower in Japan.
Photo: STA3816 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Fukuoka Castle
1607
Set on a low hill with a river forming a moat along one side and a mudflat along the other, the site today shows earthworks and approach paths rather than a tall keep; the surviving structures are a scatter of gates and wooden yagura watchtowers, including a roofed one completed in 1854, standing inside what is now a park.
Fukuoka Castle, also known as Maizuru Castle or Seki Castle, was completed in the early 1600s for the tozama daimyo Kuroda Nagamasa on Fukusaki hill in the centre of the city. The Naka River formed a natural moat to the east and a mudflat to the west, with a castle town laid out toward the sea. Most of the original buildings are gone; the grounds are now Maizuru Park, home to sports facilities, a courthouse and an art museum, though several gates and watchtowers survive, including one dated to 1854.
- Excavations begun in 1987 uncovered the remains of a korokan, an ancient guest house for foreign diplomats, beneath the castle grounds.
- The site once held Heiwadai Baseball Stadium, former home ground of the Nishitetsu Lions and Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.
- One surviving watchtower, the Minamimaru Tamon Yagura, was completed in 1854 and is designated an Important Cultural Property.
Photo: Pontafon (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Kushida Shrine
757
The shrine's visible identity is tied less to its buildings than to the festival built around it: its grounds are the starting point for the Hakata Gion Yamakasa, an annual procession of tall decorated floats, and it is dedicated jointly to Amaterasu and Susanoo.
Kushida Shrine stands in Hakata-ku, a historic port ward and one of Fukuoka's oldest districts, and is dedicated jointly to the sun deity Amaterasu and the storm deity Susanoo. Tradition dates its founding to 757. Its present-day identity is closely tied to the Hakata Gion Yamakasa, an annual festival centred on the shrine, in which tall decorated floats are paraded through the surrounding streets.
Photo: Pontafon (CC BY-SA 3.0)
History
Long before it was a modern metropolis, the area around Hakata Bay served as a principal point of contact with the Asian mainland, occupied since the Jomon period and settled early in the Yayoi period. Kushida Shrine, founded in 757, belongs to that ancient port history. Fukuoka Castle followed centuries later, completed in the early 1600s on Fukusaki hill for the daimyo Kuroda Nagamasa, with the Naka River and a mudflat serving as its moats and a castle town laid out toward the sea; most of its buildings are gone today, leaving gates, towers and a public park in their place. The city's later expansion added a different kind of structure: Fukuoka Tower, finished in 1989 on ground reclaimed from the bay, part of growth that made Fukuoka Japan's sixth-largest city by 2015.