Important cultural property

Discover the Yabe Family Residence in Yazu, Tottori — a nationally designated Important Cultural Property dating to the early 17th century, featuring grand timber architecture and a rare multi-colored camellia tree.

Izumo Hinomisaki Lighthouse rises 43.65 metres, Japan's tallest stone tower. Built in 1903, its double wall pairs cut stone with brick. Important Cultural Property, 2022.

Unjuji Shikyakumon in Yasugi, Shimane, is an early Muromachi four-legged gate designated in 1904. It outlasted the 1820 fire that took most of the temple's halls.

Beside the National Treasure main hall of Kamosu Shrine in Matsue stands a rare two-bay shrine of 1583, built to hold Kifune and Inari under one shingled roof.

Kandenan and Kogetsutei in Matsue, Shimane, are tea rooms built around 1792 to daimyo Matsudaira Fumai's own drawing. A 42cm board keeps the one-mat room open.

Former Taisha Station in Izumo, Shimane, built in 1924, is one of only three station buildings holding Important Cultural Property status. It reopened in 2026.

The Main Hall of Kiyomizudera in Yasugi, Shimane, built in 1393, is the only building on Mount Zuiko to survive sixteenth-century warfare. Entry is free.

The Main Hall of Someha Amenoiwakatsu Shrine in Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture, is an outstanding example of Azuchi-Momoyama period shrine architecture, rebuilt in 1583 by the Masuda clan. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1929, the vermillion-lacquered hall features exquisite kaeru-mata carvings and cypress bark roofing. Founded in 725, this ancient shrine also preserves a massive sacred rock cliff representing primordial iwakura worship.

Takuhi Shrine, perched within a natural rock cavern on the slopes of Mt. Takuhi on Nishinoshima Island in the Oki Islands of Shimane Prefecture, is renowned for its extraordinary setting where sacred architecture merges with the mountain itself. The main hall, prefabricated in Osaka in 1732 and assembled on site, together with the connecting hall and worship hall, forms the oldest surviving shrine complex in the Oki Islands, designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1992. Revered for centuries as the guardian deity of maritime safety across the Sea of Japan, the shrine was famously depicted by ukiyo-e masters Hiroshige and Hokusai.

A late Edo farmhouse in Yoshika, Shimane, 7.6 by 6.0 metres with a thatched hip-and-gable roof, showing the form of a small ordinary farmhouse. Designated in 1969.

An 18th-century farmhouse in Unnan, Shimane, and an Important Cultural Property. Its great hall is held open without posts by raised nobori-bari beams.

Built in 1374, the Main Hall of Manpuku-ji in Masuda, Shimane is a National Important Cultural Property. The seven-by-seven-bay hip-roofed hall preserves Kamakura-period architectural traditions, and behind it lies one of Sesshu Toyo's celebrated four great gardens, together evoking the cultural flowering of the medieval Masuda clan.

On the rugged island of Dōgo in Japan's remote Oki Islands stands Mizuwakasu Shrine, the highest-ranked shrine of the former Oki Province. Its Main Hall, rebuilt in 1795, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property celebrated for its rare Oki-zukuri architectural style — a hybrid found nowhere else in Japan. With its dramatic thatched gable roof, ancient pine-lined approach, classical sumo ring, and biennial festival of yamabiki and yabusame, this shrine offers travelers a profound encounter with island spirituality and over a thousand years of recorded history.

Discover the Former Asakura House (Kyu Asakura House), an Important Cultural Property in Daikanyama, Tokyo. Built in 1919, this Taisho-era wooden mansion features elegant tatami rooms, detailed woodwork, and a stunning hillside strolling garden with stone lanterns and seasonal foliage.

Eitai Bridge, spanning the Sumida River between Chuo and Koto cities in Tokyo, is a historic bridge with origins dating back to 1698. The current steel tied-arch structure, completed in 1926 as part of the post-Great Kanto Earthquake reconstruction, was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2007 for its majestic parabolic arch design and engineering significance. Discover the bridge's connections to the forty-seven ronin, ukiyo-e art, and its stunning blue nighttime illumination.

Completed in 1933 at Shirokanedai, Tokyo, the Former Residence of Prince Asaka was designated an Important Cultural Property in 2015. Lalique glass survives inside.

Completed in 1924 where the Arakawa splits from the Sumida, this concrete sluice by Aoyama Akira became an Important Cultural Property in 2024. Free to visit.

Soto-Sakuradamon holds the largest masugata court left at Edo Castle and the ground where Ii Naosuke fell in 1860. Free to pass, and lit nightly until 9 p.m.

Tayasumon in Kitanomaru Park is the oldest surviving building at Edo Castle, dated to 1636 by an inscription on its door fittings. Free to walk through at any hour.

Standing in Tokyo's Kita Ward, the Former Brewing Experiment Station No. 1 Factory is a magnificent 1904 brick building that became the cradle of modern Japanese sake. Designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka, one of the three great architects of the Meiji era, the building drew inspiration from German breweries and incorporated cutting-edge technology including cavity walls, vaulted ceilings, and a rare white glazed-brick koji room. Designated a Nationally Important Cultural Property in 2014, this striking red-brick complex—commonly known as the Akarenga Sake Brewery—offers a vivid window into Japan's Meiji-era industrial heritage.