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A Renowned Garden from the 17th Century
that Ingeniously Incorporates Nature
 Located in Okayama City in Okayama Prefecture, Korakuen,
along with Kairakuen in Ibaraki
Prefecture and Kenrokuen in Ishikawa
Prefecture, is one of the three most famous gardens of Japan. The feudal
lord governing the area in the Edo
period (1603-1868), the Daimyo Ikeda, started working on the garden
in 1686 and completed it 14 years later in 1700. The name Korakuen dates
back to 1871. The garden has been open to the public since 1884, when the
ownership was transferred to Okayama Prefecture.
Covering a huge area of 130,000 square meters (32.1 acres), Korakuen is one of the best known gardens of the Edo period. The garden was created on a sandbank in the Asahi River that flows from north to south through Okayama City. Consequently, the design ingeniously takes advantage of water by diverting river water to create meandering streams, ponds, and cascades in the garden. In particular, there is a building known as Ryuten that incorporates water into the design of the building: visitors can enter barefoot and soak their feet in the soothing waters. Moreover, the gardens express many of the unique aesthetic sensibilities of Japan's tea ceremony, and there are a variety of small and large teahouses, buildings with large banquet rooms, and stages for the performance of Noh. These are located in places where these activities may be enjoyed along with the beautiful scenery of the garden. Another famous attraction in the gardens are the summer blooms of a lotus plant that was successfully grown from a 2000-year-old seed which was unearthed from some Yayoi period ruins. Photos: (Top) The Korakuen Park; (middle) colorful azalea blossoms in Korakuen (Okayama Prefecture). Unauthorized reproduction of the
photos in this page is prohibited.
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