Yamatokoriyama's history dates back more than 1,000 years.
Within the city boundaries are found remains from the Jomon (BC) and
Yayoi (0-400 AD) periods as well as tumuli from the 4th century AD that
were built by the first government to rule Japan. In 1580, the warlord
Junkei Tsutui unified the Yamato Plains and built his castle in Koriyama.
This marked the start of Koriyama's heydays. Unfortunately, Tsutui died
in 1584 at the young age of 36 and the reins of government were transferred Iga.
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 The next person to occupy Koriyama Castle was Hidenaga Toyotomi, younger
brother of Hideyoshi Toyotomi who built Osaka Castle. After moving-in in
1585, Toyotomi was part of several victories in battle as a staff officer
that made him a feudal lord over a vast territory that included the fiefdoms
of Yamato, Izumi and Iga. He soon remodeled the castle and put a lot of
effort into developing the surrounding area. He is, in fact, accredited
with activating commerce in the local area by zoning the land into 33 blocks
and instituting tax reductions. People came from as far away as Sakai,
Imai and Nara to live in the growing metropolis. Toyotomi grouped them
into neighborhoods by trade, which led to district names like Uomachi (fish),
Shiomachi (salt), Konyamachi (dyeing) and Tofumachi (tofu). After Toyotomi's
death, the lord of the castle changed many times -- Katsusige Mizuno (1564-1651),
Tadaaki Matsudaira (1583-1644), Masakatsu Honda (1606-1644), etc.
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 - until 1724 when Yoshisato Yanagisawa, son of Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa, a
member of the Shogun's Council of Elders, arrived from Kofu in Yamanashi,
an arm of the feudal government in Edo(Tokyo). The Yanagisawa Family reined
over the area for the 147 years that followed up until the Meiji Restoration
took them from power in 1868. Under the Yanagisawa fiefdom, Koriyama brimmed
with vitality and became a boomtown for commerce. The Yanagisawa Family
was also interested in academics and arts, and some of the literature that
the clan lords read is preserved today in the Yanagisawa Archives. The
family also produced many men of letters. For example, Satotomo Yanagisawa
(1703-1758) was fluent not only in Japanese and Chinese, but was also versed
in many disciplines from astrology to pharmacology. Yet, he is perhaps
best known for his student of art, Taiga Ike (1723-1776), who went on to
become a master of the southern school of Chinese painting in Japan. It
was in this same period that goldfish farming started and eventually became
a mainstay of local industry. They say the first goldfish were brought
from Kofu by Matabei Yokota, a vassal in the service of Yoshisato Yanagisawa's.
Come the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the local political map was redrawn
into the prefectures of Nara, Sakai and Osaka. Then, on January 1, 1954,
the four towns of Yata, Showa, Heiwa and Harumichi merged into Yamatokoriyama
City. In the 50 years that have followed, the area has continued with local
tradition while evolving into a modern urban environment that coexists
harmoniously with Mother Nature. |
