Kiriyama Castle, Mountain fortress in Tsu, Japan

Kiriyama Castle is a mountain fortress in Tsu that sits at approximately 560 meters elevation and preserves earthen fortifications and moat remains from the medieval period. The site displays the typical layout of a Japanese highland stronghold with multiple defensive levels arranged across the terrain.

Kitabatake Akitaka chose Tage in 1342 or 1343 as the site of a mountain castle able to withstand a long war, and nine generations of the Kitabatake held it for 240 years. It burned in 1499 and was rebuilt in 1506. In 1576, after Oda Nobunaga's son Nobukatsu had Kitabatake Toshikatsu killed at Mise, troops under Hashiba Hideyoshi burned the castle and it fell.

The castle's name appears as both Kiriyama Castle and Tage Castle in the Edo-period gazetteers Sangoku Chishi and Seiyō Gorei Ikyō. The Kitabatake clan held it for nine generations over 240 years, and the surrounding castle town housed some 3,500 households, including 700 to 1,000 retainers.

The climb starts behind Kitabatake Shrine and follows the ridge about 2 km to the summit; from Ise-Okutsu Station on the JR Meishō Line it is roughly an hour on foot. The bell tower platform lies about 200 m southeast of the main bailey, not on the approach. The trail is unpaved and can be slippery when wet.

The castle's summit keep was not where the Kitabatake lived: they resided at the Tago Palace at the foot of the mountain, 1.1 km southeast, and used Kiriyama only in wartime. The two sites were merged in 2006 into a single national historic site, the Tago-Kitabatake Castle Complex, covering 268,906.91 m², of which the castle itself accounts for 15,000 m².