Iriki Fumoto Samurai District

Iriki is the fumoto that shows the technique best. The walls here are tamaishi-gaki — built from rounded river cobbles rather than cut stone, stacked without mortar, and topped with clipped hedges of tea and podocarpus that continue the line upward in green. Streets of them run around the site of Kiyoshiki castle, along with thatched samurai gates, a moat in front of the main gate and the wide parade ground the garrison used.

Satsuma built more than a hundred of these fortified administrative settlements instead of concentrating its warriors in one town, and Iriki is one of the best preserved, designated an Important Preservation District. It is inland from Satsumasendai, an hour by bus from Kagoshima Airport, and it is free to walk. The combination of cobble walls and green hedges in warm light is unlike any other historic district in Japan.