Meiji

Preserved at Museum Abashiri Prison in Hokkaido, the Former Abashiri Prison Chapel and Administration Building are nationally designated Important Cultural Properties rebuilt in 1912. Their unique Japanese-Western hybrid design tells the story of Meiji-era penal architecture and Hokkaido's pioneer past.

Established in 1896 on a forested hillside west of Abashiri City, the Futamigaoka Branch is one of Japan's only agricultural prison complexes and the oldest surviving wooden prison architecture in the country. Four buildings—the kitchen, the chapel and dining hall, the key and chain attachment office, and the inmate quarters—are designated as Important Cultural Properties, spanning the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa eras. Relocated to the Abashiri Prison Museum in 1999, the complex offers a rare and vivid window onto the evolution of Japanese penal architecture.

This 1877 wooden office shows how the Hokkaido Development Commission's builders copied American pattern books, visible in its ridge ornament and porch gable.

The former Hanada family bansho on Hokkaido's coast is a herring fishery from around 1905. The largest surviving bansho in Hokkaido, it once lodged some 200 crews.

Built in 1901 by prosperous rice merchant Zenkichi Tachikawa, this two-story brick warehouse-style store in Hakodate masterfully blends Western arched facades with traditional Japanese upper-story design. Designated as a national Important Cultural Property in 1971—the first private residence in Hokkaido to receive this honor—the building survived the devastating 1907 Hakodate Great Fire and stands as an outstanding example of Meiji-era treaty port merchant architecture.

Completed in 1906 and designated as a nationally Important Cultural Property, this two-story stone building in the Early Modern European Revival style features exquisite interiors adorned with kinkarakawakami gold-tooled leather paper, ornate plaster ceilings, and marble fireplaces. It served as the venue for the historic Japan-Russia Karafuto Border Demarcation Conference and reopened in April 2025 following extensive restoration.

A Meiji-era wooden office in southern Sapporo, built in 1887, honoring Edwin Dun, the Ohio rancher who founded Hokkaido's dairy industry from Makomanai in 1876.

The brick portal of the Tenryu pit's material-haulage incline of 1900, its walls five bricks thick framing a semicircular arch with pilasters and a name plaque.

The brick portal of the Tenryu pit's man-car incline, where carriages took miners underground, eleven metres wide with a conical keystone, pilasters and wing walls.

Step inside Japan's only publicly walkable coal mine: a 180-metre brick-arched tunnel in Yubari, Hokkaidō, with a real coal seam to touch, vintage shearers, and an 1888 origin story.

The Fifth Storehouse is the smallest in the row. Built in 1900 of stone over timber, with a stone belt course and doorways on both gable ends. Registered in 2006.

The Rice-Steaming House is a single-story brick hall where brewing rice was steamed. A brick chimney rises at the north gable. Built in 1900, registered in 2006.

The Fourth Storehouse is the only one roofed with pantiles. Built in 1900 of Sapporo soft stone over timber, with stone eaves and gable verge. Registered in 2006.

The Sixth Storehouse ends the row, its only single-story warehouse. Built in 1900 of stone over timber, with sliding doors front and back. Registered in 2006.

Rising along the Sosei River in central Sapporo, the Sapporo Church of the United Church of Christ in Japan (formerly Sapporo Methodist Episcopal Church) is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property completed in 1904. Built of local Sapporo soft stone over a wooden frame, its charming octagonal bell tower blends Romanesque and Gothic elements. This guide traces the church's origins in the Meiji era, when students inspired by William S. Clark founded Hokkaido's first Methodist community, and introduces its architectural highlights and nearby attractions.

Discover the Hakodate Chinese Memorial Hall, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property and the only remaining late Qing Dynasty-style building in Japan. Built in 1910 by overseas Chinese merchants, this brick Guandi temple features exquisite nail-free construction and lavish interiors.

Built in 1901 to Chujo Seiichiro's design, this former Sapporo college classroom sets a pilastered, pedimented front against plain hipped wings.

Built in 1902 to Chujo Seiichiro's design, this compact two-story brick library stack rewards a close look at its clinker base and stepped gable coping.

Built in 1902 by Chujo Seiichiro, this T-shaped timber reading hall wears two rooftop lanterns and windows crowned by alternating triangular and segmental pediments.

Inside the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden stands the former home of John Batchelor, the Ainu-studies missionary: a trim clapboard house of 1898, moved here in 1905.