It was one of the few castles built after the Battle of Sekigahara and establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate and was used as an administrative center of Kanō Domain under the end of the Edo period, but only its ruins, including the base of the tenshu and stone walls, remain today.

Kanō Castle is located south of the city of Gifu, and controlled the roads between Mino Province and the Kansai region of Japan.

This new structure was completed in 1603 in record time, as Ieyasu had ordered various daimyō to contribute materials, labor and money for its construction, and the largest three-story yagura was transferred from Gifu Castle to be its tenshu.

In 1900, the Gifu Prefectural Normal School was built on the site of the inner bailey and in 1939 it became the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army 51st Air Division.

After the area was proclaimed a National Historic Site in 1983, it was excavated, and the foundations of many structures, stone wall, well and a large amount of earthenware shards were discovered.