Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan

The longest tunnel on the old line, 1,170 m and dead straight, completed in 1896 near the summit above Tsuruga, lined in brick and dug through hard, wet rock.

A 65 m rockfall shelter of 1953 near Imajo, Fukui, one of the earliest prestressed concrete structures in Japan, with load-shaped columns on the valley side.

The northernmost structure of the old line, a 368 m tunnel of about 1895 near Imajo, Fukui, built by a Morioka firm with local bricks and a grand north portal.

The largest culvert on the old line, built around 1896 in Tsuruga, Fukui: a steep stone-and-brick passage about 20 m below the track that carried a stream.

An 1823 former inn at Itadori on the Hokkoku Kaido in Fukui. Its thatched helmet roof faces the old road, three guest rooms behind an earth floor. Exterior only.

A reinforced-concrete bank of 1919 in Mikuni, Fukui, built for a kitamaebune merchant family. Yamada Shichigoro designed it. Free entry; closed Mondays.

Up four stone steps from the street stands the front gate of the Yamakawa residence in Obama, a three-bay ridged gate with plaster wing walls, about 5.1 metres long.

Rebuilt in 1907 on an older samurai plan, the main house of the Yamakawa residence in Obama joins a formal shikidai entrance to a banker's dignity, poet Tomiko's home.

Beside the path to the main house, the middle gate of the Yamakawa residence opens to the north garden, just 1.5 metres wide, the smallest of five registered structures.

At the northwest corner of the Yamakawa compound stands a two-story earthen storehouse, its plaster walls faced with tall boarding and its windows shut by iron doors.

The detached room is the only one of the Yamakawa residence's five registered structures listed as a model of design; poet Tomiko died in its eight-mat room in 1909.

The former Kagetsuro restaurant of 1904 in central Katsuyama, Fukui, joins two wings of tatami rooms and keeps a 32-mat banquet hall with an umbrella-ribbed ceiling.

The Koizumi family main house in Echizen, Fukui, a late Edo farmhouse, combines a thatched gable-entry roof with tiled gables around a plan centred on the main room.

The Nishikokura dam of about 1902 at Minamiechizen, Fukui, a stone erosion control dam of huge stacked boulders in a narrow valley, still guards the village below.

A 1937 house in Sabae, Fukui, built by a textile family. Three tiled roofs curve at three heights above a black plastered wall. Registered 2008; not open inside.

An early Showa townhouse on Honmachi Street, Matsuoka, Fukui, 15 m wide, with lattices, black plaster end bays and udatsu walls. Registered 2011; now a sake shop.

An early Showa reception annex at the Kokuryu head office in Matsuoka, Fukui: one 8-mat room with a timber alcove, shelves, black-lacquered ceiling and garden ranma.

An early Showa udekimon gate on Honmachi Street, Matsuoka, Fukui, 2.7 m wide, with board doors, a Shakudani stone base, black plaster walls and red bengara timber.

The Saito Family Residence Rice Storehouse is a tall late Edo storehouse on the old Hokuriku Road in Sabae, Fukui, plaster above, boards below. Registered 2016.

The Saito Family Residence Shed in Sabae, Fukui, is a 1909 outbuilding 13 metres long and 2.0 metres deep that screens the entrance court from the garden.