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.
Built around 1928 in Tokushima for a doctor who had studied in Berlin, this three-storey concrete house has a viewing tower, a wave-plan terrace and mustard walls.
Tokushima's oldest farmhouse, built in the early Edo period above the Anabuki River in Mima. The family here still weaves hemp cloth for imperial enthronements.
The Kannonji and Shikiji finds from Tokushima, designated in 2015, are ancient wooden tablets and pottery from the Awa provincial office, with an Analects text.
The Aoki villa in Nasushiobara, Tochigi, built in 1888 by Matsugasaki Tsumunaga for a pioneer farm, is clad in scale-patterned slate and open as a memorial museum.
The front gate of Entsuji in Mashiko, Tochigi, a four-legged gate of 1511 under a gabled copper roof shaped like thatch, was designated by the state in 1916.
Ōsaki Shrine in Moka City, Tochigi Prefecture, is a venerable Engishiki-listed shrine with over 1,500 years of history. Dedicated to the gods of fortune Daikoku and Ebisu, its Main Hall (1707) and Worship Hall (late 17th century) feature extraordinary polychrome carvings by master sculptor Shimamura Entetsu, designated as Important Cultural Properties of Japan in 2018. The shrine represents a pioneering stage in the development of ornate decorative shrine architecture in northern Kantō.
The Former Nikko Tamozawa Imperial Villa in Nikko, Tochigi, listed in 2003, links ten buildings and 106 rooms under one roof, among them a moved Edo daimyo mansion.
Built in 1537 at Mashiko in Tochigi, this pagoda changes style at every storey, Japanese below and Chinese-derived fan rafters above, beneath an unusual copper roof.
Inside the main hall at Mashiko in Tochigi stands a black-lacquered miniature shrine inscribed 1394, though its carving has also been read as work of the 1490s.
This thatched two-storied gate at Mashiko in Tochigi dates to the 1490s. Its columns are cut with thirty-two facets and Chinese-style brackets carry the balustrade.
Jizoin Main Hall in Mashiko, Tochigi, dated to about 1542 and listed in 1916, is the Amida hall of a lost Utsunomiya clan temple. The interior is normally closed.
Built around 1889 in Nogi Town, Tochigi, this sixteen-sided Hoffmann kiln fired brick for eighty years. One of four left in Japan; 100 yen to walk inside.
Built in 1527, Ōkura Shrine's main hall is a small single-bay thatched structure beside Tsuna Shrine in Mashiko, Tochigi, and an Important Cultural Property.
Tsuna Shrine's thatched main hall in Mashiko, Tochigi, is a Muromachi building tied to exiled lord Utsunomiya Asatsuna, an Important Cultural Property since 1916.
A thatched farmhouse in Motegi, Tochigi, dated 1689 by its surviving ridge tag. Low double beams, an adzed post in the earth-floored bay; interior by appointment.
Bannaji Kyōdō in Ashikaga holds an octagonal revolving case with over 2,000 sutra fascicles, plus statues of the Ashikaga shoguns. It was designated in 1984.
Bannaji Shōrō in Ashikaga is a late Kamakura belfry with a flared boarded skirt and an open bell chamber. Listed in 1908, it holds an Edo-period Tenmyō bell.
The Furukawa Bridge at Ashio, Nikko, is a German-made steel truss of 1890, bolted together for the copper mine and the oldest of its make still in place in Japan.
An Important Cultural Property in Nasu, Tochigi: home of the Mimori family of village headmen, with a thatched 1733 main house and a long front gatehouse.
The main hall of Murahi Shrine in Tochigi is a late Muromachi kasuga-style hall of three bays under cypress bark, at a shrine linked to Fujiwara no Hidesato.