Meiji

Discover the Former Gakushuin Elementary School Main Hall, an Important Cultural Property from 1899. This elegant Western-Japanese fusion building served Japan's nobility and is now preserved at Boso no Mura near Narita.

Oya Ryokan is a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property inn located beside the Isumi Shrine approach in Otaki, Chiba Prefecture. Founded in the late Edo period with its current building dating to around 1885, this historic inn is famed for its connections to poet Masaoka Shiki and manga artist Tsuge Yoshiharu, offering guests an authentic stay in Meiji-era heritage architecture.

Discover Kōunkaku, a nationally registered tangible cultural property within the precincts of Katori Shrine in Chiba. This grand Meiji-period Japanese-style hall, completed around 1900, features elegant karahafu-style entrance and harmonizes beautifully with one of Japan's most revered shrines.

Choshi's Nishihiro main house joins an 1877 merchant hall to a 1937 cypress wing, with the Inubosaki coast carved into its alcove window. Registered in 2018.

Kujukuri Church in Sammu City, Chiba Prefecture, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1887. Missionary James Curtis Hepburn — creator of the Hepburn romanization system — contributed funds and design input for this early Japanese Protestant chapel, whose blend of Japanese and Western architecture reflects the dawn of Christianity in rural Meiji Japan.

The Sakamoto Sohonten Store in Yokaichiba, Sosa City, Chiba Prefecture, is a two-story kura-zukuri (warehouse-style) merchant building constructed in 1905, featuring distinctive black lacquer-plastered walls and registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property. Founded in 1805, this historic confectionery continues to sell its signature peanut crackers, originally created for the Crown Prince in 1911, offering visitors a living encounter with Meiji-era architecture and centuries-old culinary traditions.

Sasaya Dozo is a nationally registered tangible cultural property in Nagareyama City, Chiba Prefecture — a Meiji-era earthen storehouse relocated in 1898 and originally linked to a tailor shop serving the famous Echigoya (predecessor of Mitsukoshi Department Store) in Nihonbashi, Edo. Featuring striking white and black plaster walls and robust double-beam construction, this two-story dozo now operates as a charming café and bar, offering visitors a taste of the historic streetscape that once thrived on Edo River commerce.

Near Tōjō Beach in Kamogawa, the Suzuki family's hiire-gura stored sake through its final pasteurization, a heat technique Japan used long before Pasteur.

The Inari shrine at the Someya residence is early Meiji. On high ground, a small nagare-zukuri shrine sits within a gabled shelter for the household deity.

The fertilizer shed at the Someya residence is a plain early-Meiji building. Its earthen floor is split in two for making and storing fertilizer for the fields.

The front storehouse at the Someya residence dates to 1893 and began as a rice granary. Its plastered walls and namako base recall a farming family that also traded.

Built in 1889 along the historic Edogawa waterway in Nagareyama, the Former Terada-en Shop is a Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property. This black-lacquered kura-style merchant storehouse, the only one of its kind remaining on Nagareyama Honcho main street, now serves as a kaleidoscope gallery and Japanese tea cafe.

Tomoe Bridge in Tateyama City, Chiba Prefecture, is a single-arch stone bridge built in 1906 by a local stonemason. Having survived the Great Kanto Earthquake tsunami and wartime tank crossings, it is registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property as one of the few remaining Meiji-era stone arch bridges in the Kanto region.

Built in 1891 to hold grain, this two-story earthen kura survives from a Tsudanuma merchant's estate in Narashino, with battened siding and bold interior beams.

Near Tokyo in Narashino, the Hirose family's 1909 grain warehouse is a Registered Cultural Property built without earthen walls, using densely set, board-clad posts.

In Chonan, central Chiba, a small Meiji storehouse held the Hoshino pharmacy's dispensary. Registered with the shop and gate, it looks much as in 1895.

The Hoshino Family Pharmacy in Chōnan, Chiba, is a Meiji-era black-plastered earthen shop on a former post-town street, still selling medicine after a century.

Built in 1871 by the Edo River, this Noda wharf merchant's house keeps three boat-inn rooms upstairs and a flood-gated brick wall—a rare relic of river trade.

In Noda, a former Edo River shipping family kept a Fudo Myo-o shrine under a square meter, built with the carpentry of a real shrine hall. Exterior view only.

In Noda, Chiba, a brick wall once doubled as flood defense: grooves at its ends held boards to dam the Edo River, fronting a Meiji-era river merchant's home.