Historic Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty, and Natural Monuments of Nagano

A cave site at Ueda, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. In the Kofun period its floor was paved with river stones in three steps for burials, some suggesting exposure burial.

Silica deposits at a hot spring in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. Sinter is called not rare; the pale purple colloidal silica is what is valued over here now.

The Aku Site in Hara Village, Nagano, is a 7,000-year-old Early Jomon settlement and ceremonial complex featuring Japan's oldest known annular stone arrangement and a central standing stone aligned with sacred Mt. Tateshina. Preserved beneath the Chuo Expressway, its remarkable artifacts can be viewed at the nearby Yatsugatake Museum of Art.

Mato-iwa, the "Target Rock" of Mount Azumaya, is a National Natural Monument straddling the Nagano-Gunma border at an elevation of around 1,770 meters. This spectacular andesite dike extends roughly 400 meters along the ridge, with its most prominent screen-shaped section reaching up to 15 meters in height. Its remarkable hexagonal columnar jointing and the natural window at its center, said to mark where the medieval warlord Minamoto no Yoritomo's arrow pierced the stone, draw geology enthusiasts and history lovers alike. Reached by a 30–40 minute walk from the Torii Pass trailhead within Joshin'etsu-Kogen National Park, it offers a rare encounter with both volcanic geology and samurai-era legend.

Set in the wooded hills of Matsushiro in Nagano City, the Omuro Kofun Group is a National Historic Site of more than 500 burial mounds built between the 5th and 8th centuries. It is Japan's largest concentration of stone-piled tumuli (tsumiishizuka) and rare 'joined-hands' stone chambers, offering a striking window onto early cross-sea exchange with the Korean Peninsula.

Discover Ono no Shidareguri Jiseichi in Tatsuno Town, Nagano—Japan's largest natural grove of mutant weeping chestnut trees. Designated a National Natural Monument in 1920, this 3.4-hectare hillside hosts around 800 gnarled, umbrella-shaped chestnut trees once feared by villagers as the dwelling of tengu mountain spirits.

The Gonga Kanga Site in Iida holds the buried offices and storehouses of the ancient Ina district government, in use from the late 7th to early 10th century.

A National Natural Monument in Nagano's Shiga Kogen, where Genji fireflies live at 1,580–1,620 m—Japan's highest altitude for the species, fed by hot-spring warmth.

Seven Takashima Domain lords lie beneath 3-meter stone markers above Lake Suwa, the founder in a vermilion mausoleum nearby. National Historic Site, 2017.

Takato Castle Ruins in Ina, Nagano keeps the dry moats and ramparts of a Sengoku-era Takeda fortress, a rare surviving domain school, and 1,500 famed cherry trees.

In Neba, Nagano, the Great Cedar of Tsukize is Nagano's largest tree, about 13.8 m around and some 1,800 years old, a Natural Monument twice saved by its village.

Komoro's Tera-no-ura Stone Age Dwelling Site, a Late Jomon settlement excavated in 1930 below Mount Asama, was designated a National Historic Site in 1933.