Lit.: "River-crossing Castle"
Also known as: Hatsukari Castle (初雁城), Kirigakure Castle (霧隠城)

Kawagoe Castle was a flatland castle built in 1457 by Oota Sukekiyo, a chief vassal of Uesugi Mochitomo of the Ougigayatsu-Uesugi clan. In 1525, Houjou Ujitsuna took over the castle, and it became a strategic position for the Houjou rule of the Musashi Province. In 1546, the Battle of Kawagoe Castle was fought over the castle, in which the Houjou Clan won an incredible victory over overwhelming odds.

During Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Siege of Odawara in 1590, the castle fell to Maeda Toshiie and was later given to Tokugawa Ieyasu's vassal Sakai Shigetada. It then passed through the hands of several other clans before being abandoned around the 1870s.

In 1924 the Saitama government declared the castle ruins a historical landmark, and it was named as one of Japan's 100 famous castle in 2006.