高知城歴史博物館

The Kochi Castle History Museum, opened in 2017 adjacent to the Otemon gate of Kochi Castle, holds over 67,000 objects from the Yamauchi clan — the Tosa daimyo who governed the province from 1600 until the Meiji Restoration. The collection includes the clan's sword collection, documenting both official domain swordsmiths and swords exchanged with the Tokugawa shogunate. The museum's most distinctive feature is its focus on the late Edo period: Tosa produced more Meiji Restoration leaders per capita than any other domain, including Sakamoto Ryōma, and the museum traces how swords functioned in the tumultuous final decades of the sword era — from sonnō jōi activism to the final abolition of sword-carrying. Kochi Castle itself is one of only twelve surviving original castle towers in Japan and the only one with both the tower and the residential palace still standing.