Object description

Shiryōkaku is a fort in the city of Hakodate in southern Hokkaidō, Japan. It was constructed in April 1869, during the Battle of Hakodate, three kilometres to the northeast of Goryōkaku by two hundred soldiers of the former Tokugawa shogunate and a hundred local villagers, likely under the direction of Ōtori Keisuke. Goryōkaku is a star fort with five triangular bastions; Shiryōkaku instead has four, and is sometimes known as the "butterfly fort" as opposed to the "star fort".