Koishikawa Kōrakuen Garden

thumb|Panorama of fall colors thumb|Engetsu-kyō stone bridge thumb|Tsutenkyo bridge The is a large urban park in the Koishikawa neighborhood of Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese garden dates from the early Edo period. and is one of three surviving daimyō gardens of the many that were created during that period, the others being the Rikugi-en and the Hama Rikyū gardens.

==History== The Koishikawa-Kōrakuen was constructed in 1629 by Tokugawa Yorifusa, the 11th son of Tokugawa Ieyasu and daimyō of Mito Domain. It was later renovated by his son, Tokugawa Mitsukuni who named it "Korakuen" with the advice of the Ming Confucian scholar Zhu Zhiyu and inspired by descriptions of Yueyang Tower in Chinese literature and poetry. This is the same inspiration for the Kōraku-en garden in Okayama after which the Koishikawa garden is named. The gardens cover an area of more than 70,000 square meters and are planted with plum blossoms, cherry blossoms, azaleas, irises, and other flowering plants, and contain ponds and monumental stones. The gardens were the property of the Mito Tokugawa until 1869, when the final daimyō of Mito, Tokugawa Akitake surrendered the property, together with his mansion, to the new Meiji government. The new government assigned the property to the Ministry of the Army, who constructed an artillery factory on a portion of its grounds. However, much of the garden was preserved, and Emperor Meiji and other high officials used the garden as a reception area for foreign dignitaries.