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

Explore the Kanekuma Archaeological Site in Fukuoka, a nationally designated historic site featuring over 340 Yayoi period jar burials displayed in situ. Witness ancient human remains, shell bracelets from southern seas, and experience Japan's unique burial culture just minutes from Fukuoka Airport.

Explore the Yame Kofun Group in Fukuoka, Japan - home to 300 ancient burial mounds including the tomb of the legendary warrior Tsukushi no Kimi Iwai. Discover decorated tombs, stone warriors, and 1,500 years of history.

Explore the Izumi Kanga Ruins in Minamisoma, Fukushima—a National Historic Site revealing Japan's 8th-century district government complex. Discover ancient administrative halls, granaries, and artifacts from the Nara-Heian periods in this hidden archaeological treasure of the Tohoku region.

Explore the nationally designated Koori Nishiyama Castle Ruins in Fukushima Prefecture, the historic mountain fortress where the powerful Date clan rose to prominence. Walk ancient samurai paths, discover Sengoku-era fortifications, and combine your visit with Japan's finest imperial tribute peaches and nearby Iizaka Onsen.

Discover the Shimotoriwatari Kuyo Sekito, a nationally designated Historic Site in Fukushima featuring a rare 1258 Amida Triad relief. Learn about this touching memorial built by a daughter for her mother during the Kamakura period.

Discover Terushima Cormorant Habitat, a National Natural Monument in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture. This dramatic 31-meter sea cliff hosts Japanese cormorants from October to April, marking the southern limit of Pacific coast breeding. A hidden gem near Onahama's coastal resorts.

Three Shinto shrines and two temples on the southern Kii Peninsula, bound by a thousand-year pilgrimage tradition and protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Below the Shimokubo Dam, 1.5 km of the Kanna River winds among 48 green-schist boulders — the Sanbaseki, prized since the Edo era and protected since 1957.

Three flat-topped volcanic buttes east of sacred Hikosan in Kyushu. A 1941 Natural Monument, Takanosuyama offers an exposed rope-aided climb across three summits.

A 4.2-km Edo-period mountain road across the Ōu range, where Bashō was held at the Shitomae barrier in 1689 and wrote his flea-and-horse haiku nearby.

Where Wakayama, Mie and Nara meet, the Kitayama River cuts a one-kilometre gorge of 50-metre hornfels cliffs and emerald pools — a Special Place of Scenic Beauty.

A 330-meter-deep caldera lake on the Aomori-Akita border. The 14-kilometer Oirase Stream descends from its eastern shore through mossy forest, waterfalls and rapids.

Edo Tōkaidō over the 846 m Hakone Pass: 1680 stone pavement, 1618 cedars, and restored milestone mounds form a National Historic Site between Odawara and Mishima.

Aozuka Kofun in Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture, is a magnificent keyhole-shaped tumulus measuring approximately 123 meters in length, built in the mid-fourth century. As the second-largest ancient tomb in Aichi, it was designated a National Historic Site in 1983 and now anchors the Aozuka Kofun Historic Park, where reconstructed pottery cylinders, lush bamboo-grass slopes, and an on-site guidance facility immerse visitors in over 1,600 years of layered history—from the powerful chieftains of ancient Owari to a Sengoku-era fortress.

Ano Ichirizuka in Toyoake City, Aichi Prefecture is a pair of milestone mounds built in 1604 by order of Tokugawa Ieyasu, marking the 86th ri from Nihonbashi along the old Tokaido. As one of the very few sites in Japan where both the east and west mounds still survive in their original positions across the road, it was designated a National Historic Site in 1936—a quiet but uniquely vivid window into Edo-period travel.

Located at the tip of the Atsumi Peninsula in Tahara City, Aichi Prefecture, the Irago Tōdai-ji Tile Kiln Ruins are a nationally designated historic site where roof tiles were fired for the Kamakura-period reconstruction of Tōdai-ji's Great Buddha Hall in Nara. Excavated eaves tiles inscribed with 'Tōdaiji Daibutsuden Kawara' and other artifacts are displayed at the Atsumi Folk Museum, bearing witness to the extraordinary scale of medieval Japan's greatest rebuilding project and the exceptional ceramic craftsmanship of the Atsumi kilns.

Uma-no-se-iwa, a National Natural Monument in Aichi, is a 122-metre volcanic dike in the Ure River bed near Yuya Onsen, left standing as softer rock eroded away.

Urigō Site in Toyohashi, Aichi, is a Yayoi wetland village on the lower Toyokawa. Wooden tools, charred rice and shell mounds reveal farming, fishing and hunting.

The Ō-Arako Old Kiln Site fired medieval stoneware on the Atsumi Peninsula. An inscribed jar dates it to a 12th-century governor, rare in early Japanese ceramics.

Found under a Nagoya stadium in 1939, the Oguruwa Shell Mound is an Early Jomon site of clay figurines, burials and seashells, now an open park lawn with displays.