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

Discover the East Palace Garden (Tōin Teien) of Heijō Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage component and Special Place of Scenic Beauty in Nara. Restored on its original 8th-century site, this elegant pond garden is considered the prototype of the Japanese garden tradition. Includes history, highlights, and visitor information. Free admission.

Quietly tucked into a residential corner of modern Nara City, the Heijo-kyo Sakyo Sanjo Nibo Palace Garden Site is a Nara-period garden built around 750 AD that lay buried and almost untouched for over 1,200 years until its rediscovery in 1975. Its graceful S-shaped pebble-lined pond was the setting for the elegant winding-stream poetry banquets of imperial nobles. As one of only three ancient gardens in Japan to hold both National Special Historic Site and National Special Place of Scenic Beauty designations, it offers a rare and authentic window into eighth-century courtly aesthetics.

The precincts of Hōkiji in Ikaruga, Nara, form a National Historic Site and part of the UNESCO World Heritage 'Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area.' Founded on the site of Prince Shōtoku's Okamoto Palace, the temple's three-story pagoda completed in 706 is Japan's oldest. Cosmos fields frame the ancient scene each autumn.

An early-Edo Place of Scenic Beauty at Nara's Hokke-ji, unfolding in three gardens. A hall and stones are said to come from the Kyoto court; iris bloom in May.

At the foot of Mount Miwa, the Makimuku Site preserves a 3rd-century building complex and 2,000 peach pits, central to the debate over Queen Himiko's Yamatai.

The Matsuyama West Gate Barrier, or Kuromon, is the sole survivor of Uda Matsuyama's castle town in Nara: a black early-1600s gate kept in its original spot.

Mii, a National Historic Site in Ikaruga, Nara, is an ancient well in the former grounds of Horinji temple, long linked by tradition to Prince Shotoku.

A 245-metre keyhole tomb in Gose, Nara, a Historic Site since 1921, the first great chieftain's tomb of southern Katsuragi, with a red-painted stone sarcophagus.

Inside Murō-ji's grounds in Nara, a shaded ravine holds warm-climate ferns from southern Japan growing at one northern edge of their range, protected since 1928.

A 224 m early-4th-century keyhole tomb in Sakurai, Nara, Mesuriyama yielded Japan's largest haniwa and a sealed side chamber holding over 680 ritual grave goods.

A 1932 Natural Monument on Kasugayama in Nara City, the habitat of the Loomis shijimi butterfly, which fed on evergreen oak here and is now said to be extinct.

Nara’s registered properties across designations, with featured heritage and travel notes.

The complete kokuhō catalogue — browse by prefecture, period, and category.

Nationwide jūyō bunkazai — architecture, sculpture, painting, crafts, and documents.