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.
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.
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.
Rebuilt in 1447 by a northern warlord, Hagaji's Main Hall in Obama is a mid-Muromachi esoteric hall, an Important Cultural Property with a tenth-century Kannon.
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.
On a forested Wakasa mountainside near Obama, the 1489 main hall of Hanjo-ji is an Important Cultural Property keeping an older, sturdy style of timber carpentry.
The Horiguchi Residence in Ikeda, Fukui, is an early-18th-century farmhouse using five mata-bashira, naturally forked pillars, the most in the prefecture.
Maruoka Castle's keep is Japan's only surviving keep roofed in stone, with Shakudani tuff slabs weighing up to 120 tonnes. Recent dating places it around 1628.
Mikuni's 511-metre stone breakwater, designed by Dutch engineer G. A. Escher and founded on woven brushwood, was the first such work in Japan. Completed 1882.
Discover the Arima Family Mausoleum at Bairinji Temple in Kurume, Fukuoka—five mausoleum buildings designated as Important Cultural Properties, built between 1630 and 1655 by the lords of Kurume Domain. Explore samurai heritage, Zen spirituality, and plum blossoms in one remarkable site.
Located in eastern Fukuoka City, the Main Hall of Kashii-gu is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property, rebuilt in 1801 by the 10th lord of the Fukuoka domain. It is the sole surviving example of the unique "Kashii-zukuri" architectural style, enshrining Emperor Chūai and Empress Jingū. As one of only 16 imperially commissioned shrines in Japan, it preserves 1,800 years of sacred history.
Sakurai Shrine in Itoshima keeps its 1632 main hall, worship hall, and gate before a sacred cave from 1610, listed as an Important Cultural Property in 2023.
A 3.35-meter granite pagoda on a Dazaifu hill, raised in the 13th century on the site of the lost Hannya-ji temple, its four faces carved with Sanskrit syllables.
A 47.6 m concrete tower built in 1943 in Shime, Fukuoka, to haul navy coal. Japan's only surviving tower-winding headframe and an Important Cultural Property.
Hakata's Sumiyoshi Shrine main hall, rebuilt in 1623, keeps the ancient Sumiyoshi-zukuri form: a straight roof, no bracket sets, and red-and-white walls.
An 1842 thatched farmhouse on the pilgrimage road to Mount Hiko in Soeda, Fukuoka. A dated inscription fixed its age; split bamboo clads its rain-struck east wall.
Built in 1541 by the Harada clan and designated an Important Cultural Property in 2023, Takasu Shrine's main hall in Itoshima is Fukuoka's oldest surviving shrine hall.
Built in 1591 over Sugawara no Michizane's grave, this Momoyama-era Important Cultural Property in Fukuoka is being restored through 2026. Worship continues at Sou Fujimoto's living-roof kariden.
Built in 1458, Shiga Shrine is Dazaifu Tenmangu's oldest building, a one-bay hall for the sea gods by the drum bridge, an Important Cultural Property since 1907.
Housed in the Kyushu National Museum in Dazaifu, Fukuoka, the Tahō Senbutsu Sekitō is a 5.5-meter-tall, 3.5-ton octagonal stone Buddhist banner-pillar carved in northern China in 1084 CE under the Khitan-ruled Liao dynasty. Densely covered with buddhas, bodhisattvas, celestial musicians, kalavinka birds and Sanskrit dharani inscriptions, it is a benchmark masterpiece of Liao-period Buddhist sculpture and Japan's only stone banner-pillar of Chinese origin designated as an Important Cultural Property.