Shūraku-en

Shūraku-en
Shūraku-en
衆楽園
	Shūraku-en
Type	Urban park
Location	Tsuyama, Okayama, Japan
Coordinates	35°04′19″N 134°00′22″E / 35.07194°N 134.00611°E
Area	28,000 square metres (6.9 acres)
Created	1655-1658
Operated by	Tsuyama city
Status	Open to public
	National Palace of Scenic Beauty

Shūraku-en (衆楽園, Shūrakuen) is a

daimyō of Tsuyama Domain

.

History

Mori Nagatsugu invited gardeners of the

Sento Imperial Palace of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Construction work was from 1655 to 1658, and the resultant garden covered 74,700 square metres (18.5 acres) (256 meters from east-to-west by 292 meters form north-to-south), or approximately three times the size of the surviving portion of the garden today. Under the Matsudaira clan, who succeeded the Mori clan as rulers of Tsuyama, the garden was used as the Gotaimenjo (御対面所) for audiences or diplomacy. None of the buildings from the Edo period

remain. The garden was given the name "Shūraku-en" in 1870.

Most of the garden is occupied by a long pond in the north-south direction, with four islands. With the

tōrō lanterns, as the characteristic of the garden is that it is integrated with nature. The present buildings along the shore of the pond are all reconstructions. Shūraku-en was designated a Place of Scenic Beauty (名勝, meishō) by the national government in 2002.^[1]

It is open to the public free as a citizen's park. However, it is closed at night.