Commonly called “White Heron Castle”, Himeji Castle appeared in 1333 as a small castle, built by a local samurai leader named Akamatsu atop a hill, 46m high, called Mt. Hime “Princess”. In 1601 the daimyo, Ikeda Terumasa, a son-in-law of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun, started to build a huge castle that even extended over Mt. Sagi “White Heron”, located west of Mt. Hime. The real purpose of such an enormous castle was to impress rival daimyos in western Honshu, in Shikoku, and in Kyushu. Fortunately, the castle had never become involved in any battles by the time the Meiji Restoration of 1868 occurred and the shogunate system collapsed. In 1927 the Ministry of Education classed it as a National Treasure. And in 1993 UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site. A large-scale restoration of the main keep began in October 2009 and was completed in March 2015.