Odawara Castle (小田原城; -jō) is a landmark in the city of Odawara in Kanagawa Prefecture. It was the stronghold of various daimyo during the Muromachi period of Japanese history. From 1495 onward, five generations of the Late Hojo clan held the castle. The extensive defenses, including ditches, enabled the defenders to repel attacks by the great warriors Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen. However, Toyotomi Hideyoshi took the castle in 1590, and awarded the holdings of the Hojo to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who in turn installed the Okubo clan at Odawara.
During the Edo period, Odawara's strategic location on the Tokaido, between mountainous Hakone and Sagami Bay, gave it great strategic importance. The castle controlled the Tokaido between the Tokugawa headquarters at Edo and the stations west of Hakone, including Sumpu (Shizuoka), Hamamatsu and Nagoya.
Today, a reproduction of the castle stands high on a hill above Odawara.
In Odawara an artisans' guild was created, with tanners, lumbermen, carpenters, flsmiths, sliding door makers, weavers, papermakers, pearl jewelers, swordsmiths, and other types included, an indicator of the bustling economy which was developing in the city.
Odawara was well-known for its uido (a medicine which every traveler carried), wood inlays, ume boshi, shiokara or salted fish guts, kamboko or boiled fish paste, and, although it didn't apply to tourists, later guns and cannons.
Odawara, slowly developing over thousands of years into what, under the Hojo family during the Warring States period, was the center of power and development of the Kanto plane, was struck the double blow in the Edo period of the financial difficulties which crippled the entire nation, as well as constant, debilitating natural disasters.
Odawara's strategic location on the Tokaido, between mountainous Hakone and Sagami Bay, has given it a key role in Japanese history.
Prior to the Edo period, its castle was the stronghold of the Late Hojo clan warriors.
During the Edo, its castle controlled the Tokaido between the Tokugawa headquarters at Edo and the stations west of Hakone, including Sumpu (Shizuoka), Hamamatsu and Nagoya.
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