Historic Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty, and Natural Monuments of Japan

A national Natural Monument: about 30,000 tiger-tail spruce, 20 to 26 metres tall, form a primary forest on a single Mount Fuji lava flow near Lake Yamanaka.

Discover Yamanokami no Fuji, a National Natural Monument at Yamagami Shrine in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi. Designated in 1928, these two wild Japanese wisterias are rare examples of Wisteria floribunda that grew to vast size in nature rather than under cultivation. This guide covers the history of the designation, the trees' unique features, the best time to visit, access from Tokyo, and nearby Mt. Fuji attractions.

Yōgaisan in Kōfu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, is the remarkably preserved site of a mountain castle built in 1520 by Takeda Nobutora as the emergency stronghold for the Takeda clan's manor at Tsutsujigasaki. Designated a National Historic Site in 1991, the 780-meter mountain still retains its main bailey, ramparts, masugata gates, ditches, and stone walls. Traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Takeda Shingen, the site offers visitors an authentic walk through a Sengoku-period fortress amid quiet forested slopes.

Discover Ryugu Cave (Ryugu-Dōketsu), a 60-meter lava tube in Aokigahara Sea of Trees in Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi. Designated a Natural Monument in 1929, this mystical cavern enshrines the water goddess Toyotama-hime and is one of the eight sacred sites of the Fuji-kō pilgrimage.

Kōjō-in Garden, a National Place of Scenic Beauty and Historic Site in the precincts of Mii-dera in Otsu, Shiga, is a Momoyama-period pond-viewing garden laid out around 1601. Its pond extends right to the veranda of the National Treasure Kōjō-in Kyakuden, dissolving the boundary between architecture and water. A tortoise island, stone bridge, night-mooring stones, and a hillside dry-waterfall arrangement showcase early-17th-century garden artistry. Open only by advance reservation for special viewing.

The pond garden of Myojuin at Kongorinji in Aisho, Shiga, a Place of Scenic Beauty since 1990, linking three ponds along the hillside with fine waterfall stonework.

The site of Emperor Shomu's palace at Shigaraki, Shiga, begun in 742 and abandoned in 745, a Historic Site since 1926 with later additions.

Two early Edo gardens at Daitsuji in Nagahama, Shiga, a Place of Scenic Beauty since 1934: a dry garden borrowing Mount Ibuki and a small pond garden with stones.

Chausuyama Kofun is a 122-meter keyhole-shaped burial mound on a ridge above Lake Biwa, built around 1,600 years ago and designated a National Historic Site in 1921.

A National Historic Site since 2020, the Nagahara and Iba Goten in Shiga are remains of palaces used exclusively by the Tokugawa shoguns on the road to Kyoto.

A 4.48-meter granite tahōtō, dated by inscription to 1241, stands on Mount Bodaiji in Konan, Shiga, with carved Jizō and Enma stones at the lost Shōbodai-ji temple.

Hyakusai-ji's grounds in Higashiomi, Shiga, a National Historic Site since 2008, hold 200 terraced ruins of a mountain temple Oda Nobunaga burned in 1573.

At the foot of Mt. Hiei, the 400,000-square-meter precincts of Hiyoshi Taisha hold two National Treasure halls, ancient stone bridges, and Shinto-Buddhist roots.

A national Place of Scenic Beauty in Maibara, this waterless garden centers on a stone waterfall, viewed from a shoin moved from the Azai clan's Odani Castle.

The Minami-Shiga-cho Temple Ruins in Otsu mark a 7th-century temple near the short-lived Otsu capital, with a pagoda foundation stone and a scorpion-pattern tile.

Japan's westernmost hananoki maple and a National Natural Monument in Higashiomi, Shiga. Its hollow trunk fell in 2010, yet it still flowers crimson each April.

A ginkgo at Ryōtoku-ji temple in Maibara bears its seeds along its leaf edges. A National Natural Monument since 1929, it is one of only seven such trees in Japan.

Designated a National Natural Monument in 2012, the Pyroclastic Flow Deposits at Natsui Coast in Shibushi City, Kagoshima Prefecture, expose roughly one kilometre of nearly vertical, 50-metre-high sea cliffs of consolidated volcanic ash. The deposits were laid down some 22,000 to 30,000 years ago by the Ito Pyroclastic Flow from the Aira Caldera, the colossal eruption that gave southern Kyushu its signature Shirasu plateaus. Welded portions of the flow survive as offshore islets and small capes, creating a miniature ria-style coast — an open-air textbook of southern Kyushu's volcanic past.

The habitat of Podostemaceae plants in the Anraku and Mae Rivers of Shibushi City, Kagoshima Prefecture. Designated a National Natural Monument in 2010, this site marks the northernmost distribution of this remarkable plant family in Asia. Discover flowering plants that cling to bedrock like moss and witness the rare coexistence of two distinct genera in a single river.

The Sumiyoshi Shell Mound on Okinoerabu, a Historic Site since 2007, is a Jomon-to-Yayoi village of stone-walled pit houses with pottery and obsidian from Kyushu.