Edo

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Ishida Residence main house on Fukui's Echizen coast is a late-Edo timber home under russet Echizen tile, built by a family of village headmen. Exterior view only.

The oldest Ishida storehouse, this late-Edo building has a miso lean-to whose east wall is namako-kabe, a grid of black tile and white plaster. Exterior only.

Built in 1835 and moved from a hill hamlet in 2017, this two-sleeve farmhouse at the Echizen Ancient Kiln Museum was registered in 2018 and is still in daily use.

The Former Wakasaya Inn is a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property located in Imajo-juku, a historic post town along the Hokkoku Kaido highway in Minamiechizen, Fukui Prefecture. Built in the late Edo period, this two-story wooden inn features traditional lattice screens and wing fire walls, and was once one of the largest hatago in a town that boasted 55 inns. Now revived as a soba restaurant and community space, it forms a key part of the Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.

Built in 1865 in the Nishizu district of Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, this Edo-period merchant townhouse was home to Furukawaya Sōbē, a ship captain who served the renowned Furukawa-ya kitamaebune shipping enterprise. Featuring projecting lattice windows, plastered sleeve walls, and a traditional through-passage layout, it is one of the few pre-Meiji townhouses surviving in Obama. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2021, it now operates as the heritage accommodation Nishizu Minato Furukawa.

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.

The Koizumi Family Residence Main House in Nikaido, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, is a late-Edo-period farmhouse registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2009. Its distinctive silhouette combines a tall gable-fronted thatched roof with tiled gable roofs and deep tiled eaves, while the interior preserves an unusual dojo-like plan centred on a great hall. The house reflects the layered life of the Koizumi family, who served as village headmen, sake brewers, and Shinto priests of the historic Hakusan Shrine.

Tangando Soan is a hermitage built around 1846 by Fukui Domain physician Yamamoto Zuian at the foot of Mount Asuwa in Fukui City. During the Bakumatsu period, feudal lord Matsudaira Shungaku and reformist samurai such as Hashimoto Sanai held secret political meetings here. The site features a unique storehouse with sukiya-style interiors and a moss-covered garden rich in Shakudani stone.