Kawagoe (Japanese: 川越市) is a city in Saitama (埼玉) Prefecture, Japan. The city prospered as a commercial and transshipment center, It is known locally as ‘Little Edo’ (小江戸) after the old name for Tokyo, due to its many historic buildings built in the Edo period.
The Edo period (江戸時代) or Tokugawa period (徳川時代) is between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional feudal lords.
Kawagoe Castle (川越城) is a flatland Japanese castle, it is the closest castle to Tokyo to be accessible to visitors, as Edo castle is now the Imperial palace, and largely inaccessible.
The majority of the castle was dismantled during The Meiji (明治) era between 1868 and 1912, today only a mound on which a tower and the primary hall (本丸御殿) still remain on the original site.
During the Edo period, Kawagoe Castle was the headquarters of the Kawagoe Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate, which had the largest kokudaka (productivity) in the Kantō (関東) region outside of the control of the Tokugawa clan.
Kawagoe was an important commercial town supplying resources to Edo (江戶, present day Tokyo). Thanks to the thriving trade, many merchants built their stores in the Kurazukuri style.
A common Japanese saying, ‘There are many Little Kyoto in Japan, but Kawagoe is the only Little Edo.’ (世に小京都は数あれど、小江戸は川越ばかりなり)
