Important cultural property

The Funayakata in Kobe's Sorakuen, the cabin of a river barge used by the lords of Himeji around 1700, is kept on land and said to be the last river barge in Japan.

The Furui Family Residence, known as "Sennen-ya" (Thousand-Year House), is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property located in Yasutomi, Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture. Dating to the late Muromachi period, it is counted among Japan's three great thousand-year houses, featuring bamboo slatted floors, adze-finished timbers, and the legendary fire-quenching Turtle Stone.

The Nagato Province Coin Minting Relics, Nara-era coin moulds and crucibles from a Shimonoseki mint designated in 1964, are kept at the Kyoto National Museum.

A Kamakura-period scroll at Ichijō-ji in Kasai, Hyōgo, in colour on silk, shows Amida Nyorai. An Important Cultural Property since 1908, it is rarely shown.

A silk scroll at Kōkyūji in Himeji shows Kanakavatsa, second of the Sixteen Arhats. A Nanbokuchō-period work, it has been an Important Cultural Property since 1917.

A Kamakura-period scroll at Tōsen Shrine in Arima near Kobe, this Kumano mandala maps the gods and buddhas of Kumano's three shrines onto silk. Protected since 1904.

A 69.1 cm Kamakura tachi at the Kurokawa Institute, Nishinomiya, signed only 'Ichi' and showing the bright clove temper of Bizen's Yoshioka Ichimonji school.

A signed early-Kamakura tachi by Kanetsugu of Bitchu's Ko-Aoe school, its high curve and crepe-like steel with dark sumihada spots typical of the line.

A late-Kamakura tachi by the Bizen master Kagemitsu at Hyogo's Kurokawa Institute, with an engraved vajra-hilted ritual sword half hidden by later shortening.

Discover 140 exquisite Heian-period bronze mirrors offered to a sacred mountain pond and now preserved at Hyogo's Kurokawa Institute — windows into Japan's ancient water-spirit worship.

Painted in 1890 by Honda Kinkichirō, Hagoromo Tennyo (The Heavenly Maiden in the Legend of Hagoromo) is a Meiji-era oil painting that depicts a celestial maiden soaring above Mt. Fuji and Miho-no-Matsubara. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2024, it is held at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in Kobe. This guide introduces the painting's blend of Japanese subject and Western technique, its painter's life, its remarkable journey across the Pacific, and how to visit.

The former Abashiri Prison in Hokkaido, rebuilt in 1912 by its inmates, keeps the only complete timber radial cell block in Japan, now in the Abashiri Prison Museum.

The Futamigaoka branch of Abashiri Prison, a prison farm opened in 1896 for self-sufficiency, keeps five buildings of 1896 to 1930, moved to the museum in 1999.

This 1877 wooden office shows how the Hokkaido Development Commission's builders copied American pattern books, visible in its ridge ornament and porch gable.

On Hokkaido's Sea of Japan coast, the Sasanami house is the island's oldest surviving folk dwelling, raised in the early 1800s by a family of herring net owners.

This 1926 former court of appeals is the largest surviving public building of Sapporo soft stone. An Important Cultural Property, it now houses a free city museum.

The former Hanada family bansho on Hokkaido's coast is a herring fishery from around 1905. The largest surviving bansho in Hokkaido, it once lodged some 200 crews.

The Former Shimoyoichi Unjoya in Yoichi, Hokkaido, built in 1853, is the only survivor of the trading posts the Matsumae domain set up across the island.

The main hall of Shogyoji in Akkeshi, Hokkaido, built in 1799 at Itoigawa in Niigata and moved here in 1910, keeps rich carvings and colour rare in Hokkaido temples.

The main hall of Jokokuji in Kaminokuni, Hokkaido, a Jodo temple hall of 1758 below the Katsuyama fort, is one of the few Buddhist halls in Hokkaido this old.