Goryōkaku (五稜郭, lit. 'five-point fort') is a star fort in the Japanese city of Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido.^[1][2] The fortress was completed in 1866. It was the main headquarters of the short-lived Republic of Ezo.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (January 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 3,698 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:五稜郭]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ja|五稜郭}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Coordinates, Type ...

Goryōkaku
五稜郭
Part of Boshin War
Near Hakodate in Japan
Goryōkaku viewed from Goryōkaku Tower
Governmental hall of the Republic of Ezo
Goryōkaku
Coordinates	41°47′49″N 140°45′25″E
Type	Star fort
Site history
Built	1866
Built by	Takeda Ayasaburō
Battles/wars	Boshin War
19th century map of Goryōkaku

Close

Goryōkaku was designed in 1855 by Takeda Ayasaburō. His plan was based on the work of the French architect Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban.^[1] The fortress was completed in 1866, two years before the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate. It is shaped like a five-pointed star. This allowed for greater numbers of gun emplacements on its walls than a traditional Japanese fortress, and reduced the number of blind spots where a cannon could not fire.

The fort was built by the Tokugawa shogunate to protect Tsugaru Strait against a possible invasion by the Russian fleet.^[1] It became the capital of the Republic of Ezo, a state that existed only in 1869. It was the site of the last battle of the Boshin War between the Republic and the Empire of Japan. The fighting lasted for a week (June 20–27, 1869).^[1]

Today, Goryōkaku is a park declared as a Special Historical Site, being a part of the Hakodate city museum and a citizens' favorite spot for cherry-blossom viewing in spring.

• List of Special Places of Scenic Beauty, Special Historic Sites and Special Natural Monuments
• Benten Daiba, another key fortress of the Republic of Ezo
• Citadel Hill, a similar shaped fortress in Nova Scotia, Canada
• Fort Bourtange, a similarly shaped fortress in the Netherlands
• List of foreign-style castles in Japan
• Palmanova