Important cultural property

A 31-cm Nabeshima porcelain dish at Kyushu National Museum. Red and white peonies rise from a Taihu rock in a ribbed bowl, made at Saga's secret kiln c. 1680-1700.

Held at the Kyushu National Museum, this Important Cultural Property is a Yuan-dynasty Chinese tea bowl from the 13th–14th century. A rare kiln effect at the boundary of its black and brown glazes produces a silvery 'rainbow' band that gave the bowl its name. Its provenance traces back to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa.

Late Edo thatched farmhouse in Taragi, Kumamoto, with a roof that bends twice, a well-developed example of its type and part of the Hitoyoshi-Kuma Japan Heritage.

An 1832 stone girder bridge in Amakusa, Kumamoto, carried on forty-five pillars over a tidal river. A rare form in arch-building Kyushu, on a 1637 battlefield.

Thirteen Edo-period turrets, a gate and a long wall at Kumamoto Castle were designated in 1933. The concrete keep is a 1960 rebuild. Closed after the 2026 quake.

This stone pagoda in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto, inscribed in 1230 and now of eleven storeys, is an early Kamakura tower; its state since the 2026 earthquake is unknown.

The Shozenin Kannon Hall of 1625 in Mizukami, Kumamoto, built by the Sagara lords, is a thatched hall lacquered inside and out with painted and gilded carvings.

The Amida hall of Shorenji in Taragi, Kumamoto, built in about 1443, is a 5 by 5 bay hall under a hipped thatched roof, with a shingled porch and 2 ridge tags.

Hasshoji Amida Hall in Yunomae, Kumamoto, is a three-bay Buddhist hall of the late 15th century. Inside stands a Zen-style zushi sheltering an Amida triad of 1490.

Japan's only surviving cabin from a daimyo's seagoing ceremonial barge, once used by the lords of Kumamoto, with lacquered ceilings of 171 painted panels.

The stone kasa-sotoba in Shibukawa, Gunma, a memorial of a post with a cap-like stone roof dated 1356, has been an Important Cultural Property since 1953.

Stone pagoda of 1276 at Chorakuji in Ota, Gunma, its date found by chance under the base in 1931; one of only two Kamakura-dated hoto pagodas in Gunma Prefecture.

A 1.85-meter andesite pagoda in Kiryu, Gunma, carved with the date 801 and 45 characters offering merit to all beings, among Japan's oldest dated stone pagodas.

Thatched silk farmhouse of about 1792 in Nakanojo, Gunma, home of the Daido village headman, its front roof cut up to light the upper floor for silkworms.

The Hachimangu-Inari hall at Raiden Shrine in Itakura, Gunma, a two-bay hip-and-gable subsidiary shrine hall of 1547 with a two-bay porch, was designated in 1908.

Preserved at Fudō-ji Temple in Gunma Prefecture, this stone standing statue of Fudō Myōō bears the inscribed signatures of two In-pa (院派) school sculptors — In-ryū and a second master whose name is partially illegible. Stone Buddhist statues bearing the signatures of named sculptural masters are exceedingly rare in Japan, where wooden images dominate. This article explores the work's iconography, the history of the In-pa school, the reasons for its cultural designation, and recommendations for visitors planning a trip to Gunma.

Mid-Edo thatched house of the priests of Moriwaki Hachimangu in Shobara, Hiroshima, with a cattle stable, earth floor and a raised takama room for the gods.

Zen-style Buddha hall at Ankokuji in Tomo, Fukuyama, said to be the hall of the former Kinpoji, repaired by Ankokuji Ekei in 1599 and housing an Amida triad.

Rebuilt in 1875, the Itsukushima Shrine Great Torii is anchored by nothing: pine piles, gravel in its box lintel and its own mass keep it upright in the sea.

Erected in 1407 on Tonooka hill, the Itsukushima Shrine Five-Storied Pagoda hides Shingon patriarchs and a Chinese landscape inside a storey no visitor may enter.