Meiji

Discover the Former Kaimei School in Seiyo, Ehime — the oldest elementary school building in Shikoku, built in 1882. This Important Cultural Property features rare Giyōfū architecture, a museum with 6,000 educational artifacts, and hands-on Meiji-era classroom experiences.

Standing on the small island of Tsurushima off Matsuyama in Ehime Prefecture, Tsurushima Lighthouse is a Western-style stone lighthouse completed in 1873 to the design of Richard Henry Brunton, the Scottish engineer known as the Father of Japanese Lighthouses. It is one of the very few Meiji-era lighthouses still in active service in essentially its original form, and was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2024 together with its former keepers' quarters, warehouse and stone walls.

Spanning the Kojoro River gorge in Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, Otoshi Bridge is one of Japan's oldest surviving steel arch bridges. Built in 1905 with German Burbach steel as a combined road bridge and drainage channel for the legendary Besshi Copper Mine, this 48-metre spandrel-braced single-arch structure is registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Standing silently in a deep mountain gorge, it remains a vivid witness to the industrial heritage that powered Japan's modernization.

Discover the Former Hadeba Hydroelectric Power Station in Niihama, Ehime — a registered tangible cultural property built in 1912 with German-made generators, featuring the Orient's greatest water drop of 597 meters. Free admission, open since 2023.

Standing atop Mt. Shoji in Niihama, Ehime, the Former Yamane Smelter Chimney is a 19-meter Meiji-era brick chimney built in 1888 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2009. Discover its history, the Besshi Copper Mine, and how to visit "Entotsu-yama."

Kokon-so, a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Shikokuchuo City, Ehime Prefecture, is a refined wooden residence originally built around the end of the Meiji era as a secondary villa of an old family in former Kawanoe Village, then carefully relocated to its current site in Kamibun-cho during the late 1950s to mid-1960s. Its three formal rooms aligned in a row and its distinctive budo-dana (grape trellis) ceiling above the gallery corridor exemplify the high craftsmanship of late Meiji Japanese residential architecture.

Visit the Sasaki Sake Brewery Main Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Tobe Town, Ehime. Built around 1908, this Meiji-era sake house preserves the streetscape of a once-thriving mountain highway village in Shikoku.

Standing at the entrance of Meiseki-ji, the 43rd temple of the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage in Ehime Prefecture, the Niomon is a striking three-by-two-bay irimoya-style two-story gate. Distinctive red tiles, dragon-adorned ridge tiles, and rare Fujin and Raijin guardian statues make it a fascinating example of regional temple architecture. Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2007, it preserves the artistic and spiritual heritage of southwestern Shikoku.

The Main Hall of Meiseki-ji Temple in Seiyo City, Ehime Prefecture, serves as the principal building of the 43rd sacred site on the Shikoku Pilgrimage and was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2007. Constructed between 1882 and 1890 by master carpenters of the Ikata school, this five-bay-square hall features a striking red Sekishu-tile roof and an elaborate karahafu front porch adorned with intricate carvings of dragons, phoenixes, and mythical beasts. Discover a thousand-year-old temple where the heritage of Genko-zan Enshu-in Meiseki-ji meets the finest craftsmanship of Meiji-era religious architecture.