Date

Date lies in the Abukuma River valley of Mutsu, an ancestral seat of the warrior family that took its name. The Date lords held Yanagawa Castle before shifting their base to Kōri Nishiyama and later to Yonezawa. Their successors left the district, but its towns endured. In 1675 retainers sent to investigate the family's origins recorded more than four hundred town houses at Yanagawa, though its castle had recently been abandoned.