Important Cultural Property of Fukui

A remarkable assemblage of late Paleolithic stone tools discovered in the Naruka Sanka district of Eiheiji Town, Fukui Prefecture, during the late Edo period. Comprising one pointed stone tool, twenty-two tanged points, and two stone cores found in a carefully arranged deposit, this unique collection was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1997.

The Dai Hannya Kyō at Wakasa-hiko Shrine in Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property — a remarkably rare complete set of 600 hand-copied sutra scrolls from the early Heian period. Written on brown hemp paper by skilled copyists, this extraordinary collection has been preserved for over a millennium within the syncretic Shinto-Buddhist tradition.

Nestled deep in the mountains of Eiheiji Town, Fukui Prefecture, Eiheiji is a head temple of Soto Zen Buddhism founded by Zen Master Dogen in 1244. The sacred complex features 19 buildings designated as Important Cultural Properties of Japan, including the Sanmon Gate, Butsuden, Hatto, and Sodo, showcasing nearly 800 years of exceptional Zen architectural heritage. As an active training monastery with approximately 100 resident monks, Eiheiji offers visitors zazen meditation sessions and overnight retreat experiences.

Open on all four sides and seven bays wide, the worship hall at Ōshio Hachimangū in Echizen is a rare nagatoko hall, an Important Cultural Property since 1978.

Built in 1843, Otaki Shrine's joined main and worship halls carry a cypress-bark roof called Japan's most complex, raised for the paper goddess Kawakami-gozen.

A 4.5-meter nine-tier Shakudani-stone pagoda at Ōtaniji in Echizen, dated by inscription to 1323. It marks the grave of Taichō, the monk who opened Mt. Haku.

Rebuilt in 1613 and sheltered since 1754, Kasuga Shrine's Main Hall in Sabae, Fukui, is a vermilion three-bay nagare-zukuri Important Cultural Property of Echizen.

A late-Edo thatched farmhouse in Katsuyama, Fukui, built by Eiheiji carpenters for a headman. Its winged front-hall plan marks the peak of the Echizen tradition.

Completed in 1927, the Former Owada Bank in Tsuruga, Fukui, combined banking floors with a public dining hall and assembly room. It now houses the city museum.

Kehi Jingū's vermilion Great Torii in Tsuruga, Fukui, dates to 1645. Nearly 11 m tall, it survived the raid that burned the shrine and is now its oldest building.

At the north end of Jinguji in Obama, Fukui stands a late Kamakura gate of cypress shingles, its guardian figures inscribed with a date far younger than the timber.

Rebuilt in 1553 by the Echizen warlord Asakura Yoshikage, this Important Cultural Property in Obama, Fukui hangs a Shinto rope at its door and holds kami scrolls.

Rebuilt in 1491 and designated in 1941, the cypress-bark main hall of Suwa Azuki Shrine in Ikeda Town, Fukui, is often called the prefecture's oldest shrine hall.

Founded in 1658 as the Matsudaira mortuary temple, Daianji in Fukui City has five halls designated in 2008 and is midway through a repair campaign you can watch.

A late-Edo farmhouse of about 1809, moved to a park in Echizen, Fukui. Its sideways-T plan with two projecting wings is the most developed of this regional farmhouse form.

Fukui's oldest farmhouse, known as Senko no Ie, raised on hand-hewn chestnut posts, three of them forked matabashira, with an irimoya front and a hipped rear roof.

Rebuilt in 1447 by a northern warlord, Hagaji's Main Hall in Obama is a mid-Muromachi esoteric hall, an Important Cultural Property with a tenth-century Kannon.

The Former Hashimoto Residence in Ono, Fukui, is an early-18th-century farmhouse with snow-country framing, a large earthen-floored niwa, and rare earth-seated rooms.

On a forested Wakasa mountainside near Obama, the 1489 main hall of Hanjo-ji is an Important Cultural Property keeping an older, sturdy style of timber carpentry.

The Horiguchi Residence in Ikeda, Fukui, is an early-18th-century farmhouse using five mata-bashira, naturally forked pillars, the most in the prefecture.