City-wall character 城

Chinese: city wall or city; Japanese: usually castle.

In Chinese, 城 first named the defensive wall around a settlement, then the place inside it and, more broadly, a city. Today, 城墙 means the physical wall, while 城市 means the urban settlement; the city need not still have walls.

How do you read 城 in Japanese?

Shiro alone; often jō in compounds and names.

These are readings of the same character: shiro is the Japanese native reading, while jō is common in compounds and castle names. A particular name can have its own established pronunciation, so check the whole name.

The wall became a name for the city

城 appears on bronze-vessel inscriptions from ancient China’s early Western Zhou period, the earliest written examples in the character record as of 2026. These inscriptions were cast or carved on bronze vessels; they show the written form existed by then, not its exact invention date.

The character combines 土, the earth-related meaning component, with 成 as a sound component. Its meaning widened from a built defense to the settlement and then the city. In Japanese, the fortified-place sense also names a castle, which could serve as a center of administration and political authority.