{"id":436,"date":"2025-02-25T17:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T08:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/?page_id=436"},"modified":"2025-03-17T10:25:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T01:25:51","slug":"what-is-kenrokuen-garden","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/what-is-kenrokuen-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Kenrokuen Garden?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kenrokuen Garden, a strolling-style landscape garden<\/strong> as a special place of scenic beauty<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Historical and cultural heritage reflecting the Kaga Hyakuman-goku culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Along with Kairakuen garden in Mito and Korakuen garden in Okayama, Kenrokuen Garden stands as one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. During the Edo period (1603-1868), Kenrokuen Garden was founded as the external garden of Kanazawa Castle and extended over generations by the feudal lords of Kaga (current southern part of Ishikawa) as a typical Daimyo (feudal lord) garden. Located in the heart of Kanazawa, it possesses the six features*1<\/sup><\/a> that symbolize an excellent landscape garden, and provides seasonal attractions that have been appreciated by both citizens and tourists from all over the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A strolling-style landscape garden arranged with ponds, hills and tea houses over a broad area<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Due to the integration of the \u201cstrolling-style\u201d garden element, Kenrokuen Garden is laid out with a variety of gardening techniques from different periods. Unlike \u201csit-and-view style\u201d gardens where you enjoy the landscape only from a certain point of a temple or a palace, strolling-style gardens have large ponds, hills, rest houses and tea houses arranged over spacious grounds, allowing you to take a walk through them. Due to the presence of geographic features such as ponds and winding streams with water from the Tatsumi canal and artificially-built hills with a variety of trees, this garden is also referred to as a \u201cstrolling-style landscape garden incorporating ponds and hills\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A reflection of feudal lords\u2019 wishes for prosperity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Kenrokuen Garden was developed to perfection over generations by the Kaga clan lords. The basic concept of the garden\u2019s design (\u201ceternal life\u201d) remained consistent over this period. By creating a large pond to resemble the ocean and positioning an island for a legendary wizard with the secret to perpetual youth and longevity to live on, the lords cast their wishes for longevity and eternal prosperity into the garden\u2019s design. The 5th lord and founder of the garden, Tsunanori Maeda, established the three divine islands Horai, Hojo and Eisyu in the Hisago pond, and the 13th lord Nariyasu Maeda created Horai island in Kasumiga-ike pond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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*1: The origin of the garden name: \u201cSix features\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The name \u201cKenrokuen\u201d means \u201ca garden with six features\u201d. It is derived from an old Chinese gardening book that introduces \u201cKoen\u201d, a garden that possesses six features making it a perfect landscape garden. The features consist of three pairs: \u201cSpaciousness & Seclusion\u201d, \u201cArtifice & Antiquity\u201d and \u201cWater courses & Panoramas\u201d. \u201cSpaciousness\u201d refers to wide spaces and \u201cSeclusion\u201d refers to tranquility and depth. \u201cArtifice\u201d means that human skills are used and \u201cAntiquity\u201d refers to ancient nature. \u201cWater courses\u201d refers to streams, ponds and waterfalls, and \u201cPanoramas\u201d refers to good panoramic views. Actually, it is difficult to find a place where you can enjoy streams and a panoramic view simultaneously.
These paired features are contradictory; however, they are well-harmonized in Kenrokuen Garden. In particular, the coexistence of \u201cWater courses\u201d and \u201cPanoramas\u201d is the most distinctive feature of Kenrokuen Garden, which other gardens cannot imitate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

See here for further information<\/a>
\uff08Kenrokuen Garden website\uff09<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenrokuen Garden, a strolling-style landscape gard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-436","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494,"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/436\/revisions\/494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kenrokuen-archive.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}