Meiji

Discover Yakushizawa Stone-lined Waterway in Ogawa Village, Nagano - a Registered Tangible Cultural Property showcasing 19th-century stone masonry erosion control near the Fossa Magna. Perfect for hiking enthusiasts seeking authentic Japanese heritage.

Discover the Ashizawa No. 3 Stone Masonry Check Dam in Omi Village, Nagano Prefecture — a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1887 using traditional dry stone masonry techniques, still protecting the valley after over 135 years.

A Meiji-era stone masonry erosion control dam built on the Ai-shimizu-zawa tributary of the Ushibuse River in Matsumoto, Nagano. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2021, this 7.8-meter-tall, 17.5-meter-long structure features an elegantly curved spillway and is a still-functioning relic of the Meiji-era Ministry of Home Affairs sabō (erosion control) project.

On the west edge of the Ozawa compound in Matsumoto's Hofukuji town, this 1908 storehouse shows rafter shapes through its eave plaster, its plan shaped wholly by storage.

Discover the Former Reischauer Family Villa, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Karuizawa, Nagano. Built in the late Meiji era for Presbyterian missionary August Karl Reischauer, father of U.S. Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer, this rustic cedar-bark cottage embodies the spirit of early foreign summer retreats in Japan's most celebrated highland resort.

A small storehouse built for fumigation beside the gate of the former Kobayashi headman's residence near Nagano, registered for its unusual Western-style eaves.

In Motoyama post town on the old Nakasendō, the Kobayashi inn lifts its upper floor on two rare tiers of projecting beams, rebuilt after the 1869 great fire.

A small early-Meiji wooden hall in Nagano City, the Gomyo Family Detached Parlor has a full shoin set and a high hexagonal coffered ceiling. Registered in 2010.

A tiny Meiji archive storehouse on the Gomyō family's Nagano estate, with white-plaster walls and cloud-carved brackets over its east door. Registered 2010.

A Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Ueda. This small earthen granary, built in 1897, served a Sato silkworm-egg household in a famed egg-card village.

A mid-Meiji silkworm room in Kamishiojiri near Ueda, its full-length monitor roof built to ventilate the rearing rooms. A private residence, seen from the street.

West of the main house in Saku, Nagano: a slender 6.6-by-3.7m earthen storehouse, boarded floor, with a miso room attached beneath an offset roof. Registered 2011.

Squeezed between two neighbours on a stone wall in Saku, Nagano: an earth floor, exposed roof timbers, a built-in rice bin, and a roof with no gable ends. Meiji era.

The smallest of four registered buildings on a Saku farmstead in Nagano: a near-square timber box of 21 square metres, throwing out a lattice and a bay window.

Shimaki Akahiko's Former Residence is a rare late-Edo to early-Meiji hontō-zukuri farmhouse in Shiojiri, Nagano, where the celebrated Araragi-school tanka poet lived from 1909 to 1911. Now relocated beside the Shiojiri Tanka Museum, it offers visitors a quiet window into Japan's modern poetic heritage.

The Jotokuin Gate in Nagano City is an early Meiji-period yakuimon-style gate serving as the formal entrance to Jotokuin, a Tendai Buddhist sub-temple of Zenkoji. Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2006, this wooden gate is one of the rare structures that survived the devastating 1891 fire in the Zenkoji temple district, featuring distinctive architectural details including triple-stepped bracket sets and a gable roof with pan-tile covering.

Discover Shirahige Shrine Haiden, a Nagano City Designated Cultural Property in the legendary village of Kinasa. Explore its elegant Irimoya architecture, ties to Emperor Tenmu's capital relocation plan, and the tale of the demon-slaying warrior Taira no Koremochi.

A late-Meiji preparation cellar at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, notable for interior posts built up from bolted planks. Listed as hard to recreate.

The 1909 main house of the Takeshige brewery in Motai, with plastered gables and a passage to the cellars behind. Its walled street front is a famed Nakasendo scene.

Standing in the Kawagishi district of Okaya City, Nagano Prefecture, the Chuo Printing Company Building (Former Katakura Group Office) is a wood-frame two-story Registered Tangible Cultural Property completed in 1910 as the headquarters of the Katakura Group, the largest silk-reeling enterprise in Japan. Built within the grounds of the Kakigai Silk Reeling Factory — Katakura's birthplace — its dignified facade combines artificial stone pier columns with brick walls, while a Western-style first floor pairs with a Japanese hall above. Selected in the very first round of registrations in 1996, it remains an evocative monument of 'SILK OKAYA.'