Tanaka Family Residence (Amagasaki)

A Meiji farmhouse compound on the Mogawa River

The Tanaka Family Residence (Amagasaki) (田中家住宅, Tanaka-ke Jūtaku) is a farming family's compound in Tonouchi-chō, Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, laid out around 1887, whose main house, storehouse, east gate and outer wall were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on September 10, 2010. It sits in Tonouchi, at the eastern edge of central Amagasaki close to the Osaka prefectural line, on the east bank of the Mogawa, a channel that splits off the Ina River.

Amagasaki City describes the Tanakas as one of the leading owner-farmer families of Tonouchi, and the property as a well-preserved picture of how the wealthy farming class lived in the prosperous villages ringing Osaka. All four registered structures are dated to about 1887. What makes the place worth a look is that house, gate and wall belong to the same building campaign and still read as a single, deliberate frontage.

A different Tanaka Family Residence, a single main house registered in 2007, stands in Kashu on Awaji Island. The two are unrelated listings.

How the compound is laid out

The main house occupies the northern half of the plot and faces south: a large hip-and-gable farmhouse with its upper walls sealed in white plaster and a formal Shikidai step at the front. The storehouse is attached to the house's northwest corner as an inner storehouse, with a newer, unregistered storehouse lined up to its west.

Visitors were received at the east gate, set midway along the eastern edge of the plot. The outer wall runs north from the gate, while an unregistered detached wing is joined to its south side. The Tanaka Family Residence wall stands on a cut-stone base, carries its own tiled roof and turns corners as it wraps the plot, with a total length of 64 meters (Amagasaki City gives 63.6 meters). Its upper face is white plaster and its lower face charred cedar boarding, a finish repeated on the storehouse and the gate.

Seen from the street, the long white-and-black band of the wall, the break where the gate opens and the white walls of the storehouse rising beside the wall make one continuous composition. That continuity is the reason the four structures were registered as a set.

The four registered structures

The four entries carry consecutive registration numbers, 28-0456 through 28-0459, and all were registered on September 10, 2010, under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

The main house (28-0456) dates to about 1887 and covers 165 square meters, with later work around 1896 and in 1980 and 1993. The two-story storehouse (28-0457) measures 5.7 by 3.6 meters and was repaired in 1995. The east gate (28-0458), 3.1 meters wide with a gabled roof, was repaired in 1980. The outer wall (28-0459) is counted as one structure and was repaired in 1957 and 2008.

Each structure has its own page with construction details.

Visiting

The Tanaka Family Residence is a private home that is still lived in, and Amagasaki City states that it is not open to the public (as of October 2026). You cannot enter the grounds or see inside the main house or storehouse.

From the street you can see the outer wall running around the plot, the east gate on the eastern side and the outer face of the storehouse beside the wall; this is based on the layout, and what is visible depends on conditions on the ground. The houses around it are packed close together, so do not linger at the gate or peer over the wall, and keep any photography considerate of the residents and neighbors.

Getting there

The nearest station is Sonoda on the Hankyu Kobe Line. The compound lies about 1.5 kilometers southeast of the station as the crow flies, in the residential streets of Tonouchi-chō 3-chōme. It is not a visitor facility and has no parking, so come by train and on foot.