In 1629, the founder of the Mito Tokugawa family in the early Edo period, Yorihusa began to build and completed the garden of the second generation lordship Mitsukuni.

It was named "Korakuen" from the Chinese teaching that “Leaders should worry about the nation state before its people worry about it, and rejoice after the people have rejoiced.”  I learned this from the Ming dynasty Confucian scholar Shu Shunshui.