Important cultural property
重 要 文 化 財 一 覧Explore Japan’s Important Cultural Properties in one searchable list. Filter by prefecture, period, and category, read concise stories, and plan visits with maps and travel tips.
Zaigaji Temple in Toyokawa, Aichi keeps two Muromachi structures: a gate planned as two storeys but roofed as one, and a Zen-style zushi cabinet dated 1483.
Discover the Former Saigo Tsugumichi Residence, an Important Cultural Property at Museum Meiji-mura in Aichi. This French-designed Western mansion built in the 1880s blends European elegance with Japanese earthquake-resistant techniques, offering a rare glimpse into Meiji-era elite diplomacy and lifestyle.
An 1898 stone telephone exchange from Sapporo, rebuilt at its original size at Meiji Mura in Inuyama, an Important Cultural Property since 1968, with a phone exhibit.
At Sanmyo-ji in Toyokawa City rises a 14.5-meter pagoda rebuilt in 1531. Its lower stories follow the Japanese style; the third turns to the Zen style, a rare mix.
Inside Sanmyo-ji's main hall in Toyokawa City stands a wooden tabernacle for the Benzaiten image. Built in 1554, it takes the form of a Shinto shrine sanctuary.
Designed by French engineer Verny and lit in 1870 on a battery island in Tokyo Bay, this circular tower at Meiji Mura is Japan's oldest surviving Western lighthouse.
One of the four Kannon temples guarding Nagoya Castle, Jimokuji in Ama, Aichi preserves a pagoda of 1627 and an east gate of 1634, designated nationally in 1953.
In Ama City west of Nagoya stands the two-storied South Gate of Jimokuji, the city's oldest wooden building, designated in 1900, with guardian statues below.
A two-storied tahoto at Shokaiji in Inazawa, Aichi, from the mid-Muromachi period. Its bracketing blends two imported styles; the grounds are famed for hydrangeas.
Rebuilt in the Keian era of the 1640s, the Main Hall of Shokaiji in Inazawa, Aichi, sets an early Edo frame around a Kamakura altar platform and ceiling.
The main hall of Jokoji in Seto, Aichi, known as Muiden. A Zen-style hall of 1493 with a skirting pent roof, it stands below the first Owari lord's mausoleum.
Oda Urakusai's retirement residence of about 1618, built beside his teahouse Joan in Kyoto and now in Inuyama's Urakuen, with doors painted by Hasegawa Tohaku.
The Kannon hall of Shinkomyoji in Okazaki, Aichi, built in 1478. A Zen-style hall at a Pure Land temple founded by the Matsudaira, ancestors of Tokugawa Ieyasu.
A lighthouse keeper's quarters of 1873, built under British engineer R. H. Brunton beside the Sugashima Lighthouse in Mie. The brick house now stands at Meiji Mura.
Built in 1902 to reconnect the Kiso and Nagara rivers after Meiji works divided them, this brick lock still raises and lowers boats and is among Japan's earliest.
Daiju-ji's tahoto in Okazaki, Aichi, was built in 1535 by Matsudaira Kiyoyasu, grandfather of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Its square lower story meets a round upper drum.
Takisanji's two-story gate near Okazaki, an Important Cultural Property since 1901, keeps a medieval temple-gate form, dated between 1267 and early Muromachi.
Takisan-ji's main hall in Okazaki, Aichi, is a cypress-bark-roofed esoteric Buddhist hall of the early Muromachi period, and the stage for a winter fire festival.
Ordered by the third shogun Iemitsu and finished in 1646, Takisan Tosho-gu in Okazaki keeps its main hall, gate and other buildings in vivid lacquer and colour.
At Choko-ji in Inazawa stands a rare hexagonal hall of 1510, regarded as the only surviving medieval example of its form, with a Kamakura-period iron Jizo within.