Kasa

Kasa was a district of Tango whose history became closely linked to Tanabe Castle and its town. Hosokawa Fujitaka established his residence there around 1581; the exact building chronology is uncertain, but a Noh performance held in the new residence in 1588 shows that it was largely ready by then. In 1600 the castle became the scene of the siege of Tanabe, one of the struggles preceding the battle of Sekigahara.

Under the Kyōgoku and Makino houses, Tanabe remained a centre of government. Fire transformed the town in 1727: after much of the castle town burned, the domain ordered the fishing settlement of Yoshihara, formerly north of the castle, to move to the right bank of the Isatsu River. Local memory was also gathered in the Kasa district geography begun by the domain retainer Isoda Kansui in 1735, which described villages, revenues, temples and changes to the castle town.