Like her sister ships , Matsushima and Hashidate the name Itsukushima comes from one of the traditional Three Views of Japan , in this case, the Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima prefecture on the Seto Inland Sea , home to a famous Shinto-Buddhist shrine dedicated to the Buddhist goddess Benzaiten.
The design eventually proved impractical, as the recoil from the huge cannon was too much for a vessel of such small displacement, and its reloading time was impractically long; however, the Matsushima -class cruisers served their purpose well against the poorly equipped and poorly led Imperial Chinese Beiyang Fleet.
Itsukushima differed from her sister ship Hashidate primarily in that her windows were square instead of rectangular, and in that Hashidate had a stronger engine. Itsukushima had a steel hull with 94 frames constructed of mild steel, and a double bottom, divided into waterproof compartments, with the area between the bulkheads and armor filled with copra. The bow was reinforced with a naval ram. The vital equipment, including boilers and ammunition magazines , were protected by hardened steel armor, as were the gun shields.
The main armament consisted of one breech-loading mm 13 in Canet gun mounted in the bow of the ship, which could fire kg lb armor-piercing or kg lb explosive shells at an effective range of 8, meters 8, yd. The maximum rate of fire was two rounds per hour, and the ship carried 60 rounds. Secondary armament consisted of eleven QF 4.
Ten were mounted on the gun deck, five to each side, with the eleventh gun located on the upper deck of the fantail. Each gun was equipped with rounds. Each gun had rounds. Each ship in the class also had four mm 14 in torpedo tubes , three in the bow and one in the stern, with a total of 20 torpedoes carried on board. The weight of all of this weaponry led to the design becoming dangerously top-heavy, and armor was sacrificed in an effort to reduce weight.
