Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan

Discover the Former Arinaga Residence Annex in Kunisaki, Oita Prefecture—a Meiji-era wooden building registered as a national tangible cultural property. Explore its elegant architecture, Rokugo Manzan Buddhist heritage, and the story of Petro Kasui Kibe nearby.

The stone bridge and channel wall before the gate of the Higashi Betsuin in Usa. A late-Edo girder bridge, 9.5 m wide with nine cambered girders, framing the front.

The sutra repository of the Higashi Betsuin in Usa, completed in 1799, the compound's oldest building. Inside turns an octagonal revolving case in a fine storehouse.

The drum tower of the Higashi Betsuin in Usa, a late-Edo two-storey structure housing a drum. With cusped windows east and west, it accents the temple skyline.

The earthen wall and stone base on the north edge of the Higashi Betsuin in Usa. A late-Edo plaster wall on random-coursed andesite, shaping the historic streetscape.

The main hall of the Higashi Betsuin in Usa, rebuilt in 1880 after fire. One of Kyushu's largest Shin Buddhist halls, with a broad plan and a decorated inner sanctuary.

Sunori Bridge (水雲橋) is a stone two-arch bridge spanning the Era River in Innai-machi, Usa City, Oita Prefecture. Built in 1927 by master mason Matsuda Shinnosuke, it is the second-tallest stone bridge in Innai and features a distinctive asymmetric double-arch design. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2001, Sunori Bridge is a highlight of the Innai stone bridge trail in Japan's premier stone bridge town.

First lit in 1901, Sekizaki Lighthouse is Oita Prefecture's oldest lighthouse and one of only four all-iron lighthouses still active in Japan. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2022, it stands at the tip of the Saganoseki Peninsula overlooking the Hoyo Strait, surrounded by 800 wild camellia trees.

Takaiwa Bridge, located in Saito, Innai-machi, Usa City, Oita Prefecture, is a single stone arch bridge completed in 1928 by master mason Sato Hanjiro. With a 27-meter span, the longest of any stone arch in Innai, and a rare asymmetric segmental arch design finished with precisely dressed ashlar masonry, this nationally registered cultural property showcases the technical peak of Japan's traditional stone bridge craftsmanship.

Discover the Tada Family Residence Storehouse, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Bungo Ōno City, Oita Prefecture. This traditional earthen storehouse with namako-kabe walls reflects the prestige of Edo-period Grand Headmen in rural Japan.

The Bungo Channel Maritime Museum in Saiki City, Oita Prefecture, is a Western-style brick building constructed in 1904 as a rest house for the keepers of the Mizunokojima Lighthouse. Designated as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, this Meiji-era structure now houses fascinating exhibits including a Fresnel lens formerly used in the lighthouse and a unique collection of migratory bird specimens, preserving the maritime heritage of the Bungo Channel.

A 172-meter stone perimeter wall built in 1904 on the Tsurumi Peninsula in Saiki City, Oita Prefecture. Originally enclosing the rest house compound of lighthouse keepers who maintained the Mizunokojima Lighthouse in the Bungo Strait, the wall features distinctive concrete cap stones and has been a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 1998. The adjacent Maritime Museum displays the lighthouse's Fresnel lens and exhibits on the lives of the keepers.

Completed in 1957, Beppu Tower is one of the 'Tower Six Brothers' designed by Tachū Naitō, the legendary 'Tower Doctor,' and was the third high-rise tower built in postwar Japan — a year before Tokyo Tower. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2007 and renovated to its original 100-meter height in 2023, the tower offers 360-degree panoramic views of Beppu Bay, the steaming hot spring townscape, and the surrounding mountains from its 55-meter-high observation deck.

Located in the highlands of Unzen, Nagasaki Prefecture, the Unzen Kanko Hotel opened on October 10, 1935 as one of fifteen "national policy hotels" built across pre-war Japan to welcome foreign visitors. Designed and constructed by Takenaka Corporation, this Swiss chalet–style building of wood and partial reinforced concrete fuses Western and Japanese design idioms, and was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2003. Each of its three stories employs a different facing — local lava stone, half-logs, and half-timber — and as one of only nine members of the Japan Classic Hotel Association, it remains a living monument of early Showa-era hospitality at the heart of Japan's first national park.

Kanchōbashi is a 1954 Pony Warren truss steel bridge spanning the narrowest point of the Haiki Strait in Sasebo, Nagasaki. Standing at the site of Shionome, one of the celebrated Hirado Eight Scenic Views, visitors can witness powerful tidal currents rushing beneath the bridge. Fabricated at Mitsubishi's Nagasaki Shipyard and installed using an innovative tidal erection method, it was registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.

Discover the Sasebo Civic Culture Hall, originally built in 1923 as the Imperial Japanese Navy Sasebo Naval District Victory Memorial Hall. This Registered Tangible Cultural Property and Japan Heritage site in Nagasaki Prefecture features neoclassical brick architecture commemorating Japan's WWI Mediterranean naval operations. Free admission for visitors.

Four courses of two-meter blocks with recessed edges, running twelve meters along a koi-filled spring channel in Shimabara. Registered in 2014, viewable any hour.

Built around 1935 in Shimabara's Shinmachi district, this 158-square-meter timber house turns its guest rooms toward a spring-fed garden. Registered in 2014.

A brick wall rising straight from the side masonry of a spring channel in Shimabara, thirty meters long and barely one brick thick, braced by piers every 2.4 meters.

Built in 1918 at the historic eastern gateway to Nagasaki where the Narutaki River once marked the final approach along the Nagasaki Kaidō highway, Nakagawa Bridge is a single-arch stone structure registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2009. Although reinforced concrete was already common at the time of its construction, stone was chosen deliberately to honour the centuries-old tradition of Nagasaki's stone arch bridges. With its striking contrast of white granite and dark andesite, it stands as the final masterpiece in a lineage that began with the famous Meganebashi of 1634, while just upstream the older Furubashi of 1654 still survives as a city-designated cultural property.