The city developed as a castle town during the Edo Period, which is 1603 to 1867, and so became a significant powerful city for the area. The city’s castle is situated across from Okayama’s most famous attraction, the Korakuen Garden, which is ranked as one of the three best landscape gardens in Japan.  Okayama also serves as the location of the popular legendary tale of Momotaro, or The Peach Boy…many references of this tale can be seen and noticed around the city.  The story of Momotaro is thought to date back to the Muromachi Period (1392 – 1573) and thought to have first been written down in the Edo period (1603- 1867). The story is quite long, but in summary the tale is about a poor, elderly couple discovering a large peach, with a child inside they had always desired, of which he had been given by the Gods, and so they named him Momotaro (Peach Boy). As he grew up, he vowed to protect his village and so fought a band of demons and monsters, who terrorised the people, and so become a great hero.