Places & destinations
JapanPlaces & destinations
Kōraku-en
A stroll garden built for a lord, with a rice paddy, a tea plantation and a view of the black castle.
On the mapOkayama
Lord Ikeda Tsunamasa had Kōraku-en laid out between 1687 and 1700 on an island in the Asahi river, facing his castle. Unlike Kyoto’s dry gardens, this is a stroll garden: broad lawns, rare in Japan, ponds linked by streams, and above all a working rice plot and tea patch, a reminder of where the domain’s income came from. The neighbouring castle, lacquered black, earned the city the nickname "crow castle".