, also known as is a Japanese castle located in the city of Iga, Mie Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. The castle is also called , or "White Phoenix Castle," because of its beautiful architecture and floor plan. The castle has been protected by the central government as a National Historic Site since 1967. Overview Iga Ueno Castle is located on a hill at the northwestern corner of plateau formed by the Kizu River and Tsuge River, in the center of the city of Iga. The city itself is located in a mountainous basin on an important route connecting the ancient capital cities of Nara and Kyoto with the Ise Grand Shrine and provinces of eastern Japan. Iga Province was a small province separated from neighboring provinces on all sides by mountains, and its inhabitants maintained autonomy from outside control through reliance on asymmetric warfare tactics, which later came to known as ninjutsu. History In 1581, Oda Nobunaga invaded and conquered Iga. Construction on Iga Ueno Castle began in 1585 by the command of Takigawa Katsutoshi. Under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tsutsui Sadatsugu (1562-1615), was transferred from Kōriyama Castle in Yamato Province to rule over Iga. He reconstructed the castle by dividing the hill into an upper eastern half and lower western half, with the upper portion forming the honmaru, or innermost bailey, with a three-story tenshu on its eastern edge. Following the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu expelled Tsutsui Sadatsugu from Iga Province for his pro-Toyotomi stance and installed his trusted general Tōdō Takatora to rule over Iga and the northern half of Ise Province. Tōdō also had a reputation for castle architecture and had previously built Uwajima Castle and Imabari Castle. At Iga Ueno, he renovated the honmaru, giving it high walls. This meant that the walls of the honmaru of Iga Ueno Castle were the tallest of any castle in Japan. He also significantly expanded the castle area overall, with large kuruwa terraces of over 100 meters in length extending to the east and west. This gave the castle an overall size of 800 meters by 400 meters in total, with the new inner baily shifted to the western half of the hill. The site of the Tsutsui tenshu became the main residence, and a new five-story tenshu was in the process of being constructed when it was destroyed in a wind storm in 1612. However, after